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THE COMEDY OF 
CATHERINE THE GREAT 



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WORKS BY FRANCIS GRIBBLE 



MADAME DE STAEL AND HER LOVERS 

GEORGE SAND AND HER LOVERS 

ROUSSEAU AND THE WOMEN HE LOVED 

CHATEAUBRIAND AND HIS COURT OF 
WOMEN 

THE PASSIONS OF THE FRENCH 
ROMANTICS 

RACHEL: HER STAGE LIFE AND HER 
REAL LIFE 

THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF LORD BYRON 

THE ROMANTIC LIFE OF SHELLEY 



THE COMEDY OF 
CATHERINE THE GREAT 



BY 

FRANCIS GRIBBLE 

AUTHOR OF 

GEORGE SAND AND HER LOVERS " "THE ROMANTIC LIFE OF SHELLEY' 

ETC. 



LONDON 
EVELEIGH NASH 
1 9 12 



PREFACE 



One of M. de Vogue's delightful historical 
essays opens with this passage — 

" Have you no stall at the theatre this 
evening ? Or is the play they are giving dull 
and of indifferent merit ? Never mind — for you 
can easily console yourself if you have any 
volumes of history on your shelves. They 
contain the inexhaustible repertory of the great 
Human Comedy — that masterpiece of pathos 
and irony which has never ceased to unfold 
itself since the curtain of the firmament was 
first raised upon this ancient stage. Works of 
history are like the statesmen whose proceedings 
they relate. Viewed from a distance by those 
who do not really know them, they seem to be 
of a severe and forbidding gravity, entirely occu- 
pied with grandiose designs, worthy of the respect 
which dwells on the yonder side of boredom. 
But there is no need to be alarmed either by 
folios or by potentates. Insinuate yourself into 
their confidence ; strip off their masks ; look 
for what lies beneath their magniloquent 
phrases and their garb of ceremony. Then 

v 



PREFACE 



you will discover that these great companions 
of yours are of flesh and blood like yourself, 
and laugh and weep as you do. Life would 
be infinitely amusing — would it not ? — if 
one could live with no emotion but that of 
curiosity, always a spectator of the drama, and 
never an actor in it. Very well. History is 
only the life which lies behind us, and is therefore 
free from menace for the looker-on. Like life, 
it belongs to the unbridled romantic school, 
devoid of respect for the classical distinctions 
between different artistic genres. All elements 
jostle in it — the sublime with the ridiculous — 
the farcical with the pathetic. You never know 
how it is going to affect you — whether it will 
move you to fear or to pity, to laughter or to 
indignation. Very often it will happen that 
you will pass through all these emotions in a 
single moment of time." 

That is how M. de Vogue preludes his narrative 
of the death of Catherine the Great ; and the 
passage may stand just as appropriately at the 
head of the story of her Life. At all events, it 
shall stand here as a description, happily ex- 
pressed, of the spirit in which the present biog- 
raphy has been undertaken. The object which 
the biographer has pursued in his perusal of many 
volumes — some of them undeniably of a severe 
and forbidding aspect — is simply that Human 
Comedy which is the one thing of permanent and 
universal interest in history, though historians 
vi 



PREFACE 



are apt to overlook it, whether through a mis- 
taken zeal for the dignity of history, or because 
they need their space for matters concerning 
which students are more likely to be questioned 
by examiners. 

Let it be freely granted, therefore, that the 
present contribution to historical biography is 
not intended 44 for the Schools," as we say at 
Oxford, or 44 for the Tripos," as they say at 
Cambridge. Students who study solely for the 
purpose of being examined will be far more 
profitably occupied in perusing the pages of 
Mornll, of Rambaud, and of the Cambridge 
Modern History, than in reading what lies 
between these covers. But a public of students 
is not the only public which it is permissible 
for a writer of history to address. There are 
also those who, while they lack the leisure (and 
perhaps the inclination) to pore over the texts 
of treaties, or to follow all the cross currents 
of past political intrigue, have a keen interest 
in the drama of history and an equally keen 
desire to know more of the men and women who 
have played leading parts in that drama. That 
is the public to which this book is offered. 

It is offered the more earnestly because 
Catherine's reputation has suffered at least as 
much from the silence of the discreet and serious 
as from the reckless slanders of the gossips. 
While the latter have often assailed her with 
calumnies which are obviously untrue, the 
reticence of the former has done a good deal 

vii 



PREFACE 



to gain those calumnies credence. Morfill, in 
particular, for example, deliberately and ostenta- 
tiously " draws a veil " over levities and scandals 
at which he darkly hints — so leaving his readers 
with such an impression as they might get if 
conducted to the portal of Madame Tussaud's 
Chamber of Horrors, and then forbidden to 
enter on the ground that the sights within were 
too painful and shocking for them. 

Such a policy does not seem to rest upon right 
reason even when pursued at waxwork shows. 
It is altogether without justification when our 
guide is conducting us through the corridors of 
history. Exciting the reader's imagination with- 
out satisfying his curiosity, it induces him to 
draw unwarrantable inferences on the ancient 
principle : Omne ignotum pro horrifico. It may 
be proper to take the risk in the cases in which 
nothing worse than the truth is likely to be 
imagined or invented — in such a case, for instance, 
as that of Tiberius at Capri ; but, in the vast 
majority of cases, such significant and ostentatious 
discretion only results in creating a misleading 
and calumnious legend. It has certainly done 
so in the case of Catherine the Great. 

There is a legendary Catherine, summed up 
in the phrase, " The Messalina of the North." 
The implication is that we have only to look up 
Messalina in the Classical Dictionary in order 
to know what the ordinary histories do not tell 
us about Catherine ; that while, in her public 
capacity, she distinguished herself as the most 
viii 



PREFACE 



illustrious sovereign of her time, her private life 
was full of unimaginable horrors ; that, if she 
did not actually procure the murder of her 
husband and her rivals, she was the sort of 
woman who would cheerfully have done so ; 
that the life at her Court was an unceasing round 
of shameless licentiousness. Her present bio- 
grapher has even discovered intelligent people 
under the impression that she was a woman 
who made a practice of murdering her paramours. 
When silence has given birth and colour to 
such slanders, the case for telling the truth 
hardly needs to be laboured. 

The truth is that Catherine was a woman 
not only of exceptional ability but also of 
exceptional charm ; and that, if she had to be 
placed on her defence before a jury of matrons 
commissioned to judge her by modern moral 
standards, she would be able to plead, in the 
language of the criminals who are only criminal 
through circumstance, that she had " never had 
a chance." 

Her moral education, such as it was, ceased 
when she was about fourteen. She was then 
carried off from her bourgeois German home to 
Russia, and married to a drunken fool, who 
never felt or showed affection for her, but 
flaunted his infidelities in her face, and, in the 
end, threatened to repudiate her and send her 
to a nunnery. Severed from the associations 
of her childhood, in a country of which she did 
not know the language, compelled to conform 

ix 



PREFACE 



to a strange religion, she found herself, at the 
impressionable age, in conditions in which she 
could hardly fail to lose her moral bearings. 
That the Empress under whose tutelage she 
lived had lovers was notorious ; and no one 
about her Court — not even the Court Chaplain — 
professed to be surprised or shocked. It would 
have been too much to expect a slip of a girl to 
hold aloft the banner of Puritanism in such 
surroundings. Catherine would not have been 
allowed to do so if she had tried. 

A first lover was presently thrown at her 
head, for dynastic reasons, by the very guardians 
who had the supervision of her morals. A 
second lover was, shortly afterwards, thrown 
at her head, for diplomatic reasons, by the 
Russian Chancellor, acting in conjunction with 
the British Ambassador. A third lover eventu- 
ally became necessary as a protection against 
the husband who proposed to imprison her in 
a nunnery. After her husband's death, she 
would have married this third lover, if her 
subjects would have let her ; but they told 
her to her face in the Senate that she was wel- 
come to have " favourites," but that she must 
reign without a consort. Our imaginary jury 
of matrons, placed in possession of these facts, 
would have to agree that this was a combination 
of circumstances to which the conventional 
maxims of morality were irrelevant. 

The statement of the facts, however, and the 
exposition of the circumstances are essential 
x 



PREFACE 



to any attempt to rescue Catherine's reputation 
and reconstruct her personality. She has been 
damned j)y silence, sneers, and shrugs of the 
shoulders. She has nothing to lose, and a great 
deal to gain, from candid treatment. It is not 
to be expected that she will emerge from the 
inquiry with the spotless robes of a saint ; but 
there will be as little need to array her in the 
white sheet of the penitent. The superlatives — 
or a good many of them — will have to go. 
Catherine will, in the end, appear neither so 
great as she seemed to Voltaire nor so licentious 
as she seemed to Laveaux ; but more human 
— more womanly — than she seemed to either of 
them. Above all, it is to be hoped, her charm 
will be made manifest. 

To her charm, indeed, the testimony of the 
witnesses is well-nigh unanimous. There were 
differences of opinion as to her genius, but few 
as to her power of pleasing. About that, the 
lovers in possession agreed with the discarded 
lovers ; and the opinion which they shared in 
common was endorsed by Catherine's ladies-in- 
waiting, ministers, and servants, who wept for 
her, when she died, as for a mother, and by the 
Ambassadors from the foreign Courts. 

The Ambassadors, it is true, did not always 
admire without reservation. Their angles of 
vision were those of their respective nationalities ; 
and in one case — that of James Harris, first 
Earl of Malmesbury — the angle of vision was 
not easily distinguishable from that of Mrs. 

xi 



PREFACE 



Grundy. The consequence was that the comedy 
of Catherine's proceedings did not escape their 
notice. James Harris was shocked by that 
comedy, much as a bishop might be shocked by 
a performance of Pink Dominoes. His colleagues 
— and more particularly his French colleagues 
— smiled at it, but with indulgence. " Weakly 
sentimental " is the worst epithet that the 
Chevalier de Corberon could find it in his heart 
to apply to her. 

" Weakly sentimental " she indubitably was ; 
and she grew more and more weakly sentimental 
as she grew older — as old friends died and dis- 
appeared — as the world became " depopulated 
in her heart," and she was more and more op- 
pressed by a sense of isolation in her grandeur. 
In the beginning, no doubt, her sentimentalism 
was a little too ostentatious ; and, in the end, 
it made her rather ridiculous. That will appear 
as we proceed. But sentiment, however it dis- 
plays itself, commands a respect which mere 
gallantry does not command ; and when it 
exhibits itself in comedy, it keeps comedy, how- 
ever occasionally farcical, on a higher level than 
farce. It makes sympathy possible ; and the 
Human Comedy makes a wider appeal when it 
is " sympathetic," even though the scene is 
laid among the splendours of a Court. 

Every student of Catherine's life is bound 
to confess himself deeply indebted to M. 
Waliszewski's two long monographs on her 
xii 



PREFACE 



reign. They are monographs, however, not 
biographies — collections of essays, not con- 
secutive narratives ; and their existence, there- 
fore, did not seem to present any insuperable 
reason for abstaining from a fresh attempt to 
present a full and faithful portrait of Catherine 
to the English reader. The other authorities 
used are the various reminiscences of the period, 
the ambassadorial dispatches recently reprinted 
by the St. Petersburg Academie des Sciences, 
and Catherine's own Memoirs. 

The authenticity of those Memoirs, which 
was for a long time disputed, may be taken 
to be established by their inclusion in the 
Russian collected edition of Catherine's writings. 
The matter now printed incorporates a good 
deal which was not included in the only text 
formerly available ; and careful attention has 
been paid to the material thus added. 



xiii 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

Birth and Parentage — Childhood — The Summons to 

Russia ...... 1 

CHAPTER II 

Arrival in Russia — Betrothal to the Grand Duke Peter . 9 

CHAPTER III 

Marriage — Unpleasant Character of the Grand Duke — 

Flirtation with Andrew Czernichef . . .20 

CHAPTER IV 

Tribulations of Married Life — Restrictions on Liberty — 
Flirtations with Zachar Czernichef — Introduction of 
Soltikof— Birth of an Heir . . . .33 

CHAPTER V 

Removal of Restrictions — Liaison with Poniatowski — 

The Intrigues of Bestuchef . . . .45 

CHAPTER VI 

Catherine suspected of Complicity with Bestuchef — A 
Scene with the Empress — Return of Poniatowski to 
Poland — Catherine's consolatory Adventures . 59 

XV 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER VII 

PAGE 

Intrigues by the Empress's Death-Bed— Panin — Princess 
Dashkof — The Brothers Orlof — Death of the Empress 
Elizabeth, and Accession of Peter m. . . 70 

CHAPTER VIII 

Policy of Peter in. — Ill-Treatment of Catherine — Her 

Conspiracy . . . . . .82 

CHAPTER IX 

The Revolution of 1762 — The March against Peter . 92 

CHAPTER X 

Surrender of Peter — His Deposition by Death in Prison 

— By whose Order was he killed ? . . .103 

CHAPTER XI 

The Story of Ivan vi. — His Assassination in Prison . 120 

CHAPTER XII 

Catherine signals to Europe — Her Overtures to French 
Philosophers — Gregory Orlof s Invitation to Jean- 
Jacques Rousseau . . . . .129 

CHAPTER XIII 

Life at Catherine's Court — Bestuchefs Proposal that she 

should Marry Gregory Orlof . . . .141 

CHAPTER XIV 

The Search for Precedents — The Failure to find any — 
Objections of the Senate — Gregory Orlof established 
in the Post of Favourite . . . .152 

xvi 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER XV 

PAGE 

Catherine's Foreign Policy — The kidnapping of Princess 

Tarakanof . . . . . .166 

CHAPTER XVI 
The Visit of Diderot — The Insurrection of Pugachef . 180 

CHAPTER XVII 

Intrigues against Gregory Orlof — His Supersession in 

the Post of Favourite by Vasilchikof . . .195 

CHAPTER XVIII 

Marriage, Travels, Misfortunes, and Death of Gregory 

Orlof. . . . . . .205 

CHAPTER XIX 

Gregory Potemkin — His Early Life — His Military 
Services — His Promotion to be Favourite in place 
of Vasilchikof . . . . .213 

CHAPTER XX 

Potemkin's Inordinate Ambitions — His Desire to Marry 
Catherine — His Retention of his Public Offices after 
ceasing to be Favourite — Rise and Fall of Zavadovski 224 

CHAPTER XXI 

M. de Corberon at St. Petersburg — His Reports on the 

Favourites — Zavadovski — Korsakof — Zoritch . 234 

CHAPTER XXII 



Further Favourites — The Reign of Lanskoi — His Death 

— The Reign of Yermolof .... 248 

b xvii 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER XXIII 

PAGE 

The Accession of Mamonof .... 260 

CHAPTER XXIV 
Catherine's Journey to her Crimean Dominions . . 269 

CHAPTER XXV 

Interview with Poniatowski — The Crimean Journey 

continued — Return to St. Petersburg . . 282 

CHAPTER XXVI 
Retirement of Mamonof and Accession of Plato Zubof . 295 

CHAPTER XXVII 

Zubof and Potemkin — The great Stage-Managers of 
Catherine's Empire — Particularities of Potemkin' s 
Private Life . . . . . .305 

CHAPTER XXVIII 

Return of Potemkin to St. Petersburg — Rumours of his 

Marriage to Catherine — His Death . . . 320 

CHAPTER XXIX 
The unconscionable Manners and Conduct of Plato Zubof 330 

CHAPTER XXX 
Catherine's Family Life — Her Son and her Grandchildren 343 

CHAPTER XXXI 
Last Years and Death . . . . .356 

INDEX . . . . . . .367 

xviii 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Catherine the Great as a Girl . . . Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

The Empress Elizabeth of Russia . . . .62 

Peter in. of Russia . . . . .110 

Catherine the Great (on Horseback) . . .192 

Catherine the Great ..... 262 
Catherine the Great (Full-length Portrait) . . 332 



xix 



THE COMEDY OF 
CATHERINE THE GREAT 



CHAPTER I 

Birth and Parentage — Childhood — The Summons to Russia 

Gossips used to whisper that the real father of 
Catherine the Great of Russia was Frederick 
the Great of Prussia. That, we may take it, 
is an serological myth : an attempt to explain 
Catherine by means of a worthy, though ir- 
regular, heredity ; compliment joining hands with 
calumny in the legend. It is a legend, however, 
which no tittle of evidence supports ; and a 
serious biographer must sweep past it, merely 
noting the need felt for it by a world which the 
genius of Catherine perplexed. Enthusiasts, it 
would seem, have found it hard to believe 
that so great and glorious a sovereign could 
have been the child of a minor German potentate 
— a " sort of a " prince, described by a French 
ambassador as " of quite exceptional imbecility"; 
but that was nevertheless the fact. Catherine 
(as she was to be rechristened) was the daughter 
of Prince Christian-Augustus of Anhalt-Zerbst, 

A 1 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



who, at the age of thirty- seven, married Princess 
Elizabeth of Holstein-Gottorp. Her baptismal 
names were Augusta-Sophia-Frederica ; her 
family and intimate friends called her " Fig- 
chen " ; she was born in 1729. 

Probably she was born at Stettin, though 
the honour has also been claimed for Dornburg ; 
but that is no great matter. The existence 
of the mystery is more significant than the 
solution of it could possibly be. It marks, as 
scarcely anything else could, the contrast between 
her obscure origin and her splendid destiny. 
She was to be an Empress — not merely the 
consort of an Emperor, but an Empress in her 
own right, and the most remarkable figure among 
the rulers of her time ; but her birth attracted 
so little attention that historians cannot decide 
for certain which of two small German towns 
was the scene of it. Such evidence as there 
is, however, favours Stettin ; 1 and it was at 
Stettin, at all events, that Catherine grew up. 

She was nobody in particular, and there was 
no reason to expect that she ever would be 
anybody in particular. Her parents stood in 
pretty much the same relation towards the 
crowned heads of the period as that in which the 
so-called " backwoodsmen " of our own House 
of Lords stand towards those peers who really 
influence the fortunes of the State. The atmo- 
sphere of their home was one of provincialism 

1 Catherine herself states in her Memoirs that she was born 
at Stettin. 

2 



CHILDHOOD 



and shabby gentility. The poor relations of 
royal houses, they associated chiefly with the 
professional society of the upper middle classes. 
Their daughter is said to have played in the 
streets with the daughters of officers and 
Civil servants. Very likely she did; but we 
have no particulars — or none worth mentioning. 
Catherine's recollections of her childhood are 
not very rich in anecdote, though a picturesque 
fact or two may be rescued from them. 

She remembered, for instance, the marriage 
of her first governess, Madeleine Cardel, to a 
lawyer named Colhard, though she was only 
four at the time : " They gave me too much to 
drink at the wedding breakfast, with the result 
that I screamed and said that I wouldn't go to 
bed unless Mme Colhard let me go to bed with 
her." She also remembered being saved from a 
threatened deformity by a bone-setter whom her 
parents only called in with reluctance because 
his principal profession was that of public 
executioner ; and another interesting memory 
is that of her early course of religious instruction, 
which soon resolved itself into a series of argu- 
ments with her instructor, who desired the 
governess to birch his pupil for refusing to believe 
that Marcus Aurelius and other great men of 
antiquity would be damned for their ignorance 
of the divine revelation. 

And then there were certain recollections 
of certain talks about marriage, not intended 
for her ears — 

3 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



" (Bolhagen in the year 1736 was reading 
the gazette in my room. It contained the news 
of the marriage of my cousin, Princess Augusta 
of Saxe-Gotha, to the Prince of Wales, son of 
King George n. of England ; and he said to 
Mile Cardel, ' That girl, you know, is not 
nearly so well educated as this child here, — and 
she isn't any prettier, — and yet, you see, she's 
going to be Queen of England. Who knows 
what destiny may have in store for our little 
one? 5 " 

After that, Catherine says, she began to 
think and dream of crowns ; but the crown 
which was actually to be hers was regarded as 
far out of her reach — 

" Sometimes they amused themselves by 
discussing to whom they would marry me ; 
but when the name of the young Duke of 
Holstein was mentioned, my mother always 
said, 6 Oh no ! He needs a wife whose credit 
and influence would be useful in supporting his 
great claims and pretensions. My daughter 
is not grand enough for him.' " 

Those anecdotes constitute very nearly the 
sum total of what Catherine has told us of her 
younger days. Laveaux, her future husband's 
biographer, adds a scandal, crediting her with a 
lover — a certain mysterious " Count B " ; 

1 A functionary at the little Court. 

4 



CHILDHOOD 



but that is rather obviously nonsense — inspired, 
as one supposes, by the theory that the child 
must have been mother to the woman, and that 
coming events must of course have cast shadows 
before them. It may be dismissed, like the story 
of her mother's liaison with Frederick the Great, 
as a legend fabricated because the need was felt 
for it. Confining ourselves to facts, we find 
that we know practically nothing except that 
Catherine was frequently reproved by Mile 
Cardel 1 for an awkward habit of sticking out 
her chin. Beyond that unimportant trait, we 
only read of certain "displacements" : journeys 
to Eutin, to Zerbst, and even as far as Berlin, 
where Catherine's portrait was painted. 

It is not clear that she knew why it was 
painted, or for the satisfaction of whose curiosity. 
There is no reason to suppose that she traced 
any connection between the painting of that 
portrait (which was sent as a present to the 
Empress Elizabeth of Russia) and the sudden, 
and quite undeserved, promotion of her father 
to the military rank of Field-Marshal. There 
were wheels within wheels there ; but they 
revolved invisibly. Catherine was only fourteen 
— too young to understand, or even to suspect. 
She knew, of course, that her mother was one of 
the Russian Empress's " poor relations " ; but 
the Empress had not, so far, shown her family 
any remarkable kindness, and, even now, she 

1 Babet Cardel, who succeeded to the office vacated by her 
sister's marriage. 

5 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



did not appear to be in any hurry to do so. A 
year passed ; and, to a child of fourteen, a year 
seems a very long time. But then, at the end 
of the year, a strange thing happened suddenly. 

The place was Zerbst, and the time was 
December 1743. The family were keeping 
Christmas in the festive German style, when a 
courier galloped to the door, and delivered a 
letter for the Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst from one 
Brummer, formerly tutor to the young Duke 
of Holstein, now the Grand Duke Peter, heir 
apparent to the Russian crown, and at present 
his Master of the Court. 

The letter was nothing less than an invitation 
from the Empress to her poor relation, expressed, 
of course, almost as a command. Princess 
Elizabeth was to come to Russia at once, and 
present herself at the Court, whether it happened 
to be at St. Petersburg or at Moscow ; and 
she was to bring her daughter with her. Her 
husband must, on no account, be of the party ; 
and she must dispense with all preparations 
which would involve delay. A lady-in-waiting, 
a couple of maids, an equerry, a cook, and a 
footman or two — that was all the escort she 
would need. Whatever else she required would 
be provided for her when she reached Riga. 
A draft on a German bank to defray the cost of 
the journey was enclosed ; and she was strictly 
enjoined not to gossip as to its object. If she 
felt it absolutely necessary to confide in some one, 
then she might confide in Frederick the Great, 
6 



\ 



THE SUMMONS TO RUSSIA 



who was in the secret, and would be able to 
give further information. 

An astounding letter truly to burst upon a 
quiet Christmas party in a German provincial 
town ! It was followed, after an interval of 
only two hours, by a second letter, not less 
amazing, also delivered by special courier, from 
Frederick himself, supplying the additional in- 
formation which the first letter had promised. 
The journey, Frederick explained, had matrimony 
for its goal. Catherine (or Sophia, as she was 
then called) was to go to Russia to be betrothed 
to the heir to the Russian throne — that Grand 
Duke for whom her mother had supposed her 
" not grand enough." That was why the 
portrait had been painted, and that was why 
Prince Christian-Augustus had been made a 
Field-Marshal. The wires, in short, had been 
carefully pulled ; and the end to which they 
had been pulled was now in sight. The invita- 
tion of the Empress must be regarded as a 
command, and obeyed. 

That was the dramatic end of Catherine's 
girlhood. She tells us that she divined the cause 
of her parents' excitement before it was com- 
municated to her, and that she astonished her 
mother by handing her a sheet of paper on which 
she had written the couplet — 

" Augure de tout 
Que Pierre III sera ton epoux." 

But that is as it may be ; for Catherine's retro- 
spective imagination was rather riotous, and she 

7 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



was very fond of fancying that she had had 
early premonitions of her glory. Her destiny, 
at any rate, was planned for her without refer- 
ence to her inclinations ; and already, when 
barely fifteen, she was treated as a pawn in the 
game of the diplomatists — albeit a pawn which 
was presently to be queened and to dominate the 
board. 

That said, we must pause to examine the 
conditions of the board and the circumstances 
which had caused the new piece to be brought 
into play. 



8 



CHAPTER II 



Arrival in Russia — Betrothal to the Grand Duke Peter 

The Russian Succession, in the first half of the 
eighteenth century, may be said to have 
depended upon rules which were uniformly 
broken. The rule was that the reigning 
sovereign nominated a member of his family 
to succeed him ; the machinery for breaking 
the rule was a Palace Revolution. A usurper, 
male or female, corrupted the Imperial Guard, 
marched on the Palace, — preferably at the dead 
of night, — murdered or arrested the Tsar (or 
Regent), and proceeded to rule in his place. 
Such acts of violence were almost as frequent 
as general elections in England at the present 
time, and were regarded as natural incidents 
in the rough-and-tumble of family quarrels. 
The silent millions of the Russian people had 
no concern with them, but acquiesced apatheti- 
cally in the results. 

The Empress Elizabeth, the only surviving 
daughter of Peter the Great, attained the 
throne, through such a revolution, at the age 
of thirty-two, in 1741. The Tsar Ivan vi., 

9 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



a minor, was locked up in the fortress of 
Schlusseiburg. His mother and guardian, the 
Grand Duchess Anne Leopoldovna, together 
with her husband, Prince Anton-Ulrich of 
Brunswick, was sent to live in a small town on 
the shores of the White Sea ; and Elizabeth 
proceeded, according to the rules of the game, 
to select an heir among her kindred. 

It is hardly likely that she played the game 
for her amusement, or even for the satisfaction 
of her personal ambition. According to the most 
credible witnesses, she was a weak, vain woman, 
not without charm, but at once superstitious 
and frivolous, equally addicted to long prayers, 
lovers, and luxury. Her very weakness, how- 
ever, made her a convenient instrument in the 
bands of the intriguers who desired the revolu- 
tion. The German influences at the Court had 
been too strong to please them. Tired of 
being exploited by Germans, they put Elizabeth 
forward as the representative of the patriotic 
Russian interest, and triumphed in her name. 
Their German enemies — Ostermann, Munnich, 
and the rest — were marched off to Siberia ; 
and Elizabeth, having no child of her own, — 
none, at all events, whom she could acknowledge, 
— named as her successor her nephew, Peter- 
Ulrich, son of her sister Anna, who had married 
Karl-Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp. This youth, 
then fourteen years of age, was fetched 
from Kiel to St. Petersburg in 1742, and was 
known thenceforward as the Grand Duke Peter. 
10 



BETROTHAL 



Young though he was, the question of find- 
ing a wife for him was almost immediately 
raised ; and the starting of it set the wire- 
pullers to work in the principal European 
Chancelleries. 

Bestuchef, the Russian Chancellor, desired 
an alliance which should combine the interests 
of Russia, Saxony, Austria, Holland, and Great 
Britain against those of France and Prussia ; 
but France and Prussia also had something to 
say in the matter, and had their supporters at 
the Russian Court. We need not enter into all 
the details of their machinations — it suffices to 
relate the issue of them. French, Saxon, Polish, 
and Prussian princesses were successively pro- 
posed and rejected. It was represented that 
the religious difficulty would be less with a 
Lutheran than with a Catholic princess. It was 
also represented that, the less important the 
princess selected, the more amenable the 
Russians would be likely to find her. Then, 
after the way had thus been paved, Frederick 
the Great pressed the claims of his own candi- 
date : the only surviving daughter of Prince 
Christian of Anhalt-Zerbst. 

There, of course, we see quite clearly the 
inwardness alike of Prince Christian's unmerited 
preferment to the rank of Field-Marshal and of 
the painting of his daughter's portrait. Princess 
Sophia had been brought up as a Lutheran ; 
she might fairly have been described, at that 
date, as the least of all the princesses ; and her 

11 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



appearance was attractive. Probably, when the 
issue was hanging in the balance, her personal 
attractiveness decided it ; for that was a con- 
sideration to which, rightly or wrongly, more 
weight was attached in Russia than at the other 
Courts of Europe — a point which may be 
illustrated by the strange story of the choice of 
a bride by the Tsar Michael. 

When Michael made up his mind to marry, 
he organised a kind of beauty show at the 
Palace. All the marriageable daughters of 
the nobility then in Moscow were summoned 
to the Imperial presence and instructed to 
bring their night-dresses. A large dormitory 
was provided for them, and they were put to 
bed in a row. In the course of the night, the 
Tsar, accompanied by his mother, made a tour 
of the dormitory. The charms of the sleepers 
were duly considered and compared, and the 
most desirable of them was selected and married, 
in spite of the fact that she was poor and of 
humble station. This ceremony, which took 
place in the middle of the seventeenth century, 
and is gravely recorded by a serious Russian 
historian, is a valuable piece of evidence as to 
the position of women in Russia, and not, 
perhaps, without significance as a precedent for 
the choice of the humble Princess of Anhalt- 
Zerbst as the consort of the Russian heir 
apparent. 

At all events, the choice did fall on her — 
and fell with the dramatic suddenness which 
12 



BETROTHAL 



we have seen : a courier galloping to the door, 
and a transformation akin to that effected in the 
lot of Cinderella by the magic wand of the 
fairy godmother. Splendours, she was assured, 
such as she had never dreamed of awaited her 
as soon as she crossed the frontier. She must 
make haste — make haste. Messenger after 
messenger arrived, urging her to lose no time ; 
and her mother was a woman who could be 
trusted, in such a case, to see to it that no time 
was lost. The summons arrived, as we have 
seen, at Christmas 1743 ; the date of the 
departure was 10th January 1744. Catherine 
was not yet fifteen — still in the schoolroom, 
and with an unstocked wardrobe. Her outfit 
consisted of " two or three dresses, twelve 
chemises, and an equal number of stockings 
and pocket-handkerchiefs." The notables of 
Zerbst are said to have assembled to wish her 
luck in her great adventure ; and she is said 
to have announced her resolve to " reign alone 
over this great Empire." But these are stories 
in which one once more suspects the imaginative 
handiwork of the mythologist. 

Berlin, where the girl arrived without even a 
Court dress, was the first stage ; and the second 
was Schwedt on the Oder. There Catherine 
parted from her father, whom she was never 
to see again; and his last paternal act was to 
hand her a roll of manuscript containing his 
hints for her deportment at the Russian Court. 
He exhorted his daughter to order herself lowly 

13 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



and reverently to all her betters ; to try her 
hardest to make her husband happy ; to be care- 
ful with her money ; not to get into debt or to 
concern herself with politics ; not to allow any 
friend to be on too intimate terms with her. 
It is pretty much the advice which any father 
of modest station might have given to any 
daughter whose marriage was about to promote 
her to embarrassing and unfamiliar grandeur. 
It is quite authentic ; and there is no reason 
whatever to suspect irony in the daughter's 
recorded expression of thanks for it. She was 
only fourteen, and irony is not an attribute of 
that tender age. 

She drove on, with her mother, through 
Memel, along the road to Riga — travelling 
post, and travelling quite as uncomfortably 
as lowlier persons. The roads were shocking, 
and the inns were worse. Six horses had to, be 
hired for each of the four lumbering carriages 
— not for the sake of grandeur, but simply to 
avoid sticking in the mud. The guest chambers 
in which the travellers slept at the post stations 
were like so many pigsties. It was as if the 
journey itself were an allegory designed to 
illustrate and emphasise the coming transition 
in the bride's fortunes. 

That transition began at Mittau, and was 
completed at Riga, where the caravan arrived 
on 6th February. There banquets were spread, 
and a suite of luxurious apartments was ready, 
and officers in splendid uniforms, glittering with 
14 



BETROTHAL 



orders, knelt to kiss hands ; and the rest of the 
journey was a triumphal procession, escorted 
by a detachment of the Holstein regiment of 
cuirassiers, and attended by servants of every 
grade and description : butlers, and cooks, and 
confectioners — including a special cook to make 
the coffee; footmen, and grooms, and farriers. 
The sledge in which the travellers rode was 
scarlet, and was lined with fur. They lay at 
full length in it on silk mattresses, resting their 
heads on damask pillows, with a satin coverlet 
drawn over them. And so to St. Petersburg, 
and thence, following the Court in its migration, 
to Moscow, drawn, on the last day, by sixteen 
horses, taking the last stages at a headlong 
gallop, and covering the last fifty miles in a short 
three hours, until they clattered into the court 
of the Wooden Palace, where courtiers bowed 
low, and soldiers presented arms, and the Grand 
Duke Peter, in his impatience, gave them no 
time to change their travelling dresses, but 
there and then embraced his promised bride — 
" most affectionately," as her mother reported 
to her father. 

He was not yet quite sixteen, so that his 
impatience accorded with his years. The 
portrait, it is evident, had made the desired 
impression ; and the impression was not be- 
lied by the reality. One may fairly use the 
hackneyed expression, and say that " all went 
merrily as a marriage bell" — for the first few 
weeks, at all events. " We are living like 

15 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



queens," the Princess of Zerbst reported to her 
husband. As for her daughter — " the Empress 
is most kind to her, and the heir apparent is 
madly in love with her." But her daughter's 
Reminiscences cannot be said to echo the en- 
thusiasm. She speaks of herself as the slave 
of duty, and complains of her fiance's lack of 
ardour. " All girls," she protests, " however 
carefully brought up, like compliments and 
expressions of tenderness." She did not hear 
any ; she was too proud to take the initiative in 
the matter ; so she consoled herself by " playing 
games " with her attendants. 

Meanwhile, however, she allowed herself to 
be " converted " ; and she preserved to the 
end of her life a keen sense of the ease with 
which such changes of the heart could be 
effected. " It can be done in a fortnight," she 
said when it was necessary to convert the bride 
selected for her own son ; which sounds cynical, 
but is not altogether without plausibility — for 
if reason, as the religious tell us, has nothing 
to do with the choice of a creed, it is hard 
to say what considerations save those of con- 
venience remain to be consulted. And Catherine, 
at any rate, delighted all truly religious Russians 
by preferring an Orthodox priest to a Lutheran 
pastor when she fell ill and was assumed to 
need spiritual comfort. Possibly that scene was 
arranged for her by her elders, with an eye to 
effect ; but the effect was indubitably produced. 
Her illness was pleurisy ; and her recovery 
16 



BETROTHAL 



was almost miraculous, for she was bled sixteen 
times in a month. Her pallor, when she 
began to be convalescent, so impressed the 
Empress that she sent her a pot of rouge, with 
her compliments and an injunction to use 
plenty of it. The Grand Duke himself soon 
afterwards fell ill, — first with measles, and then 
with smallpox, — and emerged from the sick- 
room deeply pock-marked, and with a shaven 
head, covered with a gigantic and ludicrous wig. 
The transformation was not, of course, particu- 
larly favourable to romance ; and Catherine is 
said to have fainted with horror at the spectacle. 
A girl young enough, as she then was, to find 
her chief pleasure in playing blind man's buff 
with her ladies-in-waiting may very well have 
done so. But this painful change in the per- 
sonal appearance of her future husband was 
not her only trouble. It coincided with the 
discovery that Peter was a young barbarian 
with the manners of an unlicked cub. 

There were other annoyances. Her mother 
was fussy ; the Empress was capricious. 
Catherine was reprimanded for running into 
debt, for staying out too late in the Palace 
grounds, for living on too familiar terms with 
the least desirable of the ladies placed in attend- 
ance on her. She was also worried by Palace 
jealousies and intrigues, the inwardness of which 
she was too young to understand. All that, 
however, was only the ordinary trouble of a 
high-spirited schoolgirl, prematurely launched 
b 17 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



in adult society. She could have laughed her 
way lightly through it if she had been in love 
and had looked forward with delighted anticipa- 
tion to her wedding day. But she was not in 
love, and it would be idle to argue that she 
ought to have been. No other girl would have 
been likely to love Peter any more than she 
loved him. Peter was, as we have said, an 
unlicked cub ; and Catherine's Memoirs furnish 
us with abundant particulars to support that 
charge. 

Peter, as Catherine paints him for us, was 
at once a big baby and a precocious roue. One 
of his first confidences to his young fiancee 
related to an " affair " with one of the Empress's 
maids-of-honour, who had, he said, been banished 
to Siberia for his sake. That, it seems, was 
his cubbish way of acting on the motto : Se 
faire valoir. For the rest, he was of a temper 
alternately violent and sulky, addicted to 
practical jokes in the society of ladies, spent 
most of his time in playing at soldiers with his 
valets, and a good deal of the rest of it in playing 
with dolls and other toys. So that — 

" As my wedding day approached, I grew 
more and more melancholy. My heart told 
me that I should derive no happiness from my 
marriage ; but ambition sufficed to sustain me. 
In the depths of my heart I felt the premonition 
that, some day, sooner or later, I should be the 
sole sovereign ruler of the Russian Empire." 
18 



BETROTHAL 



So she is said to have reflected ; while 
Lord Hyndford, the British Ambassador, wrote 
home for " some English stuffs," suitable for 
wedding presents, remarking that " when one 
has to do with ladies, one must have something 
in the female way." We need not believe all 
that she tells us about her ambitions and her 
confidence that they would be realised, but 
we can hardly help believing some of it. She 
was only fifteen ; she had been placed in a 
position from which there was no drawing 
back ; and she had to reconcile herself to it 
somehow. No doubt she sought her consola- 
tion (whether she found it or not) by thinking 
of the throne, and trying to forget the loutish 
heir to it. 



19 



CHAPTER III 



Marriage — Unpleasant character of the Grand Duke — 
Flirtation with Andrew Czemichef 

" Their imperial highnesses," writes the British 
Ambassador, " were married on August 21. 
The procession was the most magnificent that 
ever was known in this country, and surpassed 
anything I ever saw." The bride, he might 
have added, was only sixteen, and the bride- 
groom only seventeen years of age. 

The latter' s character was already formed, 
for it was the sort of character that does not 
take much forming. He was a half-baked, ill- 
conditioned lout, and was to remain a half- 
baked, ill-conditioned lout until the end. 
Catherine, on the contrary, was a high-spirited 
schoolgirl, but with possibilities of ardour, 
intellect, and character unsuspected as yet 
either by herself or by any of those about her. 
She had begun to read, and discovered that 
she liked reading. The time was soon to come 
when she would always have a book in her 
pocket or under her pillow, except when she 
had one in her hand. Beginning with fiction, 
20 



MARRIAGE 



she quickly passed to history and philosophy. 
It is not clear whether she preferred Bayle's 
Dictionary, Madame de Sevigne's Letters, or 
Brantome's Dames Galantes. She studied all 
three authors, and each of them influenced her 
in some degree. No doubt she came the more 
easily under their influence because of the dull- 
ness of her life. 

She and her husband soon, and for some time, 
found themselves the objects of a kind of perse- 
cution brought upon them by no fault of their 
own. Their marriage had represented a tempor- 
ary triumph of German influence at the Russian 
Court, and had been concluded in spite of the 
wishes of Bestuchef, the Chancellor already 
mentioned, who represented the national Russian 
party. This eclipse of Bestuchef, however, was 
only of brief duration. He soon reasserted 
himself as the power behind the throne, an 
autocrat whose motto was " Russia for the 
Russians," with its corollary that the proper 
place for Germans was Germany. He could 
not, of course, send Peter back to Holstein- 
Gottorp, or dismiss Catherine to Anhalt-Zerbst ; 
but he could, at least, hurry Catherine's mother 
home, get rid of the Germans in her suite, forbid 
both her and Peter to communicate with Ger- 
many, and surround them with creatures of his 
own, commissioned to spy upon their actions and 
report to him. 

That was his policy, and he was ruthless 
and thorough in the execution of it. One by one, 

21 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 

all the foreigners attached, in whatever capacity, 
to the grand- ducal household were dismissed ; 
and all persons, whether strangers or natives, 
supposed to be sympathetic to them were 
eliminated from their entourage — some of them 
even finding their way, on one pretext or another, 
to prison or to exile. Nor was that all. It 
was further intimated to Catherine that she 
must not correspond with her German relatives 
— not even with her mother. All her letters 
home were to be composed for her at the Foreign 
Office by Bestuchef's clerks, and she was to do 
nothing but append her signature. Only by 
treating her as a child, Bestuchef thought, was 
it possible to make her a good Russian. 

Peter, it appears, was hardly, if at all, 
perturbed. He had his own interests : his dogs, 
his horses, his mistresses, his toys, his games of 
soldiers ; and with these recreations there was 
no attempt to interfere. He also liked to get 
drunk, and had ample opportunities of doing 
so. Deeply attached to his vices, he was in- 
different to the nationality of his boon com- 
panions, as is the way of those whose senses 
are blunted by strong drink. Catherine, on the 
other hand, felt the cruelty alike of her enforced 
isolation and of the enforced companionship 
of chaperons whom she could not trust, and 
with whose language even she was as yet imper- 
fectly acquainted. She had come to Russia, 
doubtless, with the Western view of Russians : 
as incapable of distinguishing an individual 
22 



MARRIAGE 



Russian, different from other Russians, as the 
average European is of recognising that any indi- 
vidual Chinaman differs from other Chinamen. 
She was to learn to do so — she was already 
learning ; but the process of education was 
painful. Her position, in truth, was very much 
like that of a girl sent to a foreign boarding 
school, falling into disgrace for reasons which 
are not explained to her, eyed with obtrusive 
suspicion, and never able to escape from the 
prying gaze of governesses. 

Her life, as she depicts it for us in her Memoirs, 
was inexpressibly tedious : nothing but a weary 
round of journeys from palace to palace ; of 
interminable devotional exercises at the devo- 
tional seasons ; of monotonous Court functions 
and card-parties. All this, year in year out, 
for many years, without any of those oppor- 
tunities of gay abandon which are the privilege 
of the irresponsible, without a companion who 
spoke her own language or had a soul above 
the routine of rites and ceremonies, and also 
without — or very nearly without — the occa- 
sional relief of privacy. All this, moreover, in 
the company of such a husband as Peter was 
now proving himself to be. 

How Peter impressed his child-wife before 
marriage we have already seen. How he dis- 
gusted her afterwards innumerable passages in 
the Memoirs demonstrate. The memory of his 
unpleasant habits clung to Catherine and sick- 
ened her for years. She portrays him as at 

23 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



once a fool and a boisterous buffoon. His least 
objectionable recreation was to lie in bed and play 
with toys. He also compelled his wife to play 
cards with him for hours at a time, sulked when 
he lost, but insisted that the money should be 
instantly handed over when he won. At other 
times he diverted himself by pacing Catherine's 
boudoir, cracking a whip at the servants. But 
the most offensive of all his offences consisted 
in keeping a pack of hounds in the room adjoin- 
ing the bridal chamber, so that the noise of 
their yapping was always in Catherine's ears, 
and their stench always in her nostrils. She 
returns to the subject several times, this being 
her first reference to it — 

" The Grand Duke got his pack together 
while we were in the country, and set to work 
to train the hounds himself. When he was 
tired of teasing them, he scraped on a fiddle for 
a change. He did not know a note of music, 
but he had a fairly good ear, and supposed 
that the charm of music consisted solely in the 
violence with which the instrument was handled. 
Those who heard him would gladly have stopped 
their ears with cotton-wool if they had dared. 
. . . This mode of life was continuous alike in 
the country and in town." 

And then, on a subsequent page — 

" Our principal nuisance, morning, noon, and 
nearly all night, was as follows. The Grand 
24 



MARRIAGE 



Duke trained his hounds with remarkable 
perseverance, lashing at them with his whip, 
yelling at them after the manner of huntsmen, 
and chasing them from one of his two rooms to 
the other. Those of the hounds that got tired, 
and tried to desist from the game, were pitilessly 
whipped, and so yelled and howled louder than 
ever. When he wearied of this amusement, 
which was an unconscionable nuisance to the 
ears and tranquillity of those about him, he 
used to take a fiddle and scrape it, very loudly 
and very much out of tune, walking up and down 
the room the while — returning ultimately to 
the training of his hounds, thrashing them 
in the most cruel style. . . . Once, hearing a 
poor hound yelling horrible, I opened the door 
of my room, which adjoined that in which these 
proceedings were taking place, and pleaded 
for the poor beast ; but that only caused the 
blows to be rained with redoubled vigour. Un- 
able to bear the cruel sight, I withdrew to 
my bedroom, crying ; but my tears, instead 
of moving the Grand Duke to pity, only made 
him more angry. Pity was an emotion for 
which there was no room in his soul." 

Even in the annals of the most discordant 
royal marriages one would not easily discover 
a parallel to that picture. One cannot help 
feeling for Catherine as much pity as she felt 
for the hounds ; and if the stock objection should 
be taken to it that one story is good until another 

25 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



is told, one can confirm the general impression, 
if not all the details, from other sources. It 
was at about this time that Peter was assigned 
a tutor to help him to mend his manners ; and 
the tutor's memorandum of instructions, which 
has been preserved, specifies the various par- 
ticulars in which his manners require amend- 
ment. His Imperial Highness, the memor- 
andum sets forth, must be taught not to make 
ugly faces at people, not to hold indecorous 
conversations with his inferiors, and not to 
empty his wine-glass over the heads of the foot- 
men who wait at table. One infers from that 
sober document as readily as from Catherine's 
more vivacious reminiscences the sort of un- 
mannerly lout that Peter was ; and one can 
sympathise with Catherine's feelings when she 
too was given a monitress, commissioned to 
exhort her to ' 6 be more tolerant of her husband's 
tastes ; to make herself more agreeable to him ; 
to display affection and even passion; and, in 
short, to employ all means in her power to win 
his tender regard, and accomplish her conjugal 
duty." 

The exhortation was obviously evoked by 
Catherine's failure, after the lapse of what 
seemed a reasonable time, to give the throne 
an heir ; and measures were, in fact, taken 
to determine whether it was she who was sterile 
or her husband who was incapable of paternity. 
The order arrived one day — conveyed curiously 
enough by a lady-in-waiting — that the Empress 
26 



MARRIAGE 



desired the Grand Duke to take a bath. Peter 
objected. He had never had a bath in his 
life, he said, and he did not mean to have one 
now. He was quite sure that a bath would 
be bad for his health ; it might even be fatal ; 
at any rate, he proposed to run no risks. The 
lady-in-waiting insisted, declaring that, if he 
did not have a bath, the Empress would cause 
him to be imprisoned in a fortress ; but Peter 
burst into tears of rage, declaring that he would 
show the Empress that he was not a baby, and 
must not be treated like one ; and Catherine, 
in whose presence the scene occurred, continues, 
explaining the significance of the order — 

" At last she left us, announcing that she 
would report the conversation verbatim to Her 
Majesty. I don't know what she made of it, 
but presently she came back, and changed her 
tone, saying that the Empress was very angry 
that we had no children, and that she proposed 
to solve the mystery with the help of a doctor 
and a midwife/' 

Evidently, therefore, Peter had some reason 
to expect that the doctor would visit him in 
the bath, and had refused to repair to it chiefly 
for that reason. His obstinacy prevailed, and 
the mystery remained unsolved. Very likely 
there was no mystery at all, and no explana- 
tion other than mutual incompatibility. " If," 
Catherine writes, " the Grand Duke had desired 

27 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



me to love him, I could have done so, for it 
was my natural inclination to obey duties of 
that kind " — a profession which one has no 
difficulty in believing. But the Grand Duke 
had not desired it. On the contrary, he had 
preferred to regale his wife with talk about 
the superior charms of other women. There 
is no need to give a list of them ; but no less 
than seven are enumerated by the biographers, 
and one story may be cited as typical of all — 

" The Grand Duke," says Catherine, " was 
very much attracted, especially when he had 
drunk too much, as he did every day of his life, 
by the Princess of Courland. He never quitted 
her side ; he never spoke to any one but her. 
In short, his preference for her was so notorious 
as to shock my vanity at the thought that such 
a hideous little monster was my successful 
rival. One day, when I rose from the dinner- 
table, Mme Vladislava told me that every one 
was distressed to see this hunchback preferred 
to me. 6 What am I to do ? 5 I replied ; 
and I went to bed in tears. Hardly had I got 
to sleep when the Grand Duke came to bed too. 
Being drunk, and not knowing what he was 
doing, he proceeded to entertain me with talk 
about the superlative attractions of his mistress. 
I pretended to be fast asleep, hoping thus to 
induce him to keep quiet. He only spoke 
the louder, in order to wake me up ; and when 
I showed no sign of waking, he banged me 
28 



MARRIAGE 



in the ribs with his fists, grumbled at me for 
sleeping so soundly, and then turned round 
and began to snore." 

That no family was born to parents so 
disposed towards each other is no matter for 
extreme astonishment. Perhaps the Empress 
presently realised as much ; and that may be 
the significance of Catherine's statement that 
" nothing more was said about requiring the 
Grand Duke to take a bath." A letter from 
Peter to Catherine, printed as an appendix 
to the Russian translation of the Memoirs, in 
which, as early as 1746, he excuses himself 
from sharing her apartment on the ground that 
" the bed is too narrow," may also be regarded 
as pointing to that conclusion. Husband and 
wife evidently ceased very soon after their 
union to live on conjugal terms ; so we may 
leave that branch of the subject, and consider 
the question of Catherine's own deportment. 

Her monitress — Mme Choglokof — was not 
appointed solely for the purpose of exhort- 
ing her to be more affectionate to Peter. The 
memorandum of instructions also represented 
that Catherine neglected her religious duties, 
tried to interfere with public affairs, and was 
unduly familiar in her manner with the officers 
attached to the Court. Seeing that she was 
only seventeen, her interference with the affairs 
of State cannot have amounted to a great 
deal ; but she was not, of course, at that age, 

29 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



too young to flirt. Our question is : Was there 
any case against her ? 

If we could believe Laveaux, we should have 
to say that there was not one case only, but a 
long list of cases. Laveaux draws a picture 
of Catherine and one of her attendant ladies 
leaning out of the Palace window together, 
and becoming comprehensively amorous of an 
entire regiment of Life Guardsmen. He tells 
us that Catherine and this same maid-of-honour 
sallied from the Palace night after night, in 
disguise, and kept appointments with lovers 
to whom they never revealed their identity. 
He further revives the story of the mysterious 

Count B , already introduced by him as 

Catherine's lover at Stettin. Count B , he 

says, followed Catherine to St. Petersburg, was 
caught by Peter trying to force the door of 
her apartment, and was arrested and banished to 
Siberia, without trial, by Administrative Order. 

Those stories, however, are very obviously 
fables, invented by a biographer who wanted 
to make out a case for Peter. There is no 
evidence whatever that Catherine, as yet, sought 
such adventures ; and there is plenty of evidence 
that she was too closely watched to have any 
chance of pursuing them. All that is authentic 
is that she flirted — very mildly ; that she was 
caught out in her very first flirtation ; and that 
she was promptly placed under very strict 
supervision. It is not much of a story, but 
one must tell it. 
30 



FLIRTATION 



The hero of it was a certain Andrew Czernichef , 
a dashing young Guardsman, as enterprising 
as he was dashing. It seems that he had 
received some encouragement — not much, per- 
haps, but still enough to encourage him. He 
had admired Catherine before her marriage — 
and Catherine liked admiration ; but the affair 
had been noticed and nipped in the bud. Andrew 
had received a friendly hint from a high quarter 
to the effect that he had better fall ill and 
apply for leave of absence. Otherwise 

He had taken the hint without requiring the 
i's to be dotted ; but now that Catherine was 
safely married, he had been allowed to return 
to the post of duty — and inclination — in the 
Summer Palace. He was on guard there, 
in the great hall, just then in the hands of 
painters and decorators, on which Catherine's 
room opened. For once in her life — it was a 
thing which was rarely allowed to happen — 
Catherine was alone. She opened the door, 
looked out, and caught sight of her handsome 
young admirer — 

" I beckoned to him," she writes, " and 
he came to the door — very nervously, I am 
bound to say. I asked him if the Empress 
was likely to be passing. c I can't hear you 
speak,' he said. 4 There is too much noise 
here. Let me come inside.' c Certainly not,' 
I replied. He was outside the door, and I was 
inside ; but I was holding the door a little way 

31 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 

open and speaking through the aperture. Turn- 
ing my head with an involuntary movement, I 
saw behind me, close to the door of my dressing- 
room, the Court Chamberlain, Count Divier. 
6 Madame,' he said, 6 the Grand Duke wants 
you.' " 

No more — apparently — than that ; but the 
Court Chamberlain was a spy and a tale-bearer. 
He reported what he had seen, and Catherine 
heard of the matter from her confessor. Was 
it true, the priest asked her, that she had kissed 
Czernichef ? "It is a calumny, my father," 
she replied. " Then you had better be careful, 
my child, not to give calumny an opening," 
was the rejoinder ; but there were also penalties 
to be paid. Andrew Czernichef was sent to 
prison — though not for very long ; and Catherine 
was given a chaperon — the Mme Choglokof of 
whom we have spoken. She was allowed thence- 
forward to go nowhere without Mme Choglokof 
in attendance ; no one was admitted to her apart- 
ments without leave from Mme Choglokof ; and 
Mme Choglokof lectured her on etiquette from 
morning to night, saying continually, " You 
mustn't behave like that — the Empress wouldn't 
like it." 

Such were the unfortunate and unpleasant 
beginnings of Catherine's married life. 



32 



CHAPTER IV 



Tribulations of Married Life — Restrictions on Liberty — Flirta- 
tions with Zachar Czernichef — Introduction of Soltikof — 
Birth of an Heir 

The supervision, which had been tolerably 
strict from the first, became stricter than ever 
after the installation of Mme Choglokof as 
chaperon ; and it applied to Peter as well 
as Catherine. They lived in a gilded cage — 
none too brilliantly gilded — enjoying less liberty 
than is, as a rule, allowed to school- children, and 
no more scope for the play of their individualities 
than if they had been fowls in a poultry-run. 
That, at all events, was the theory ; and, for 
some time, it was the practice also. It was 
to relieve the consequent tedium that Peter 
established his pack of hounds in the apartment 
adjoining his wife's bedroom. We know already 
what Catherine thought of that ; and she has 
left us a graphic picture of the ways in which 
Peter bored her when he was not occupied 
either with his hounds or with his fiddle — 

" The Grand Duke," she writes, " never 
entered my room except for the purpose of 
pacing up and down it, talking to me of matters 
c 33 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



which, no doubt, interested him, but had no 
interest whatever for me. He used to do 
this for hours at a time, and several times a day. 
I had to pace the room with him until I sank 
from exhaustion. I had to listen to him atten- 
tively and reply to him, though he generally 
talked the most insufferable nonsense." 

He had some wild idea, it seemed, of building 
himself a pleasure-house, on the lines of a con- 
vent, — a sort of Thelema, as it were, — at Oranien- 
baum. All the inmates were to wear the Capucin 
habit, bring their own provisions, and draw their 
own water from the well. The notion was no 
passing fancy, but a fixed idea on which he en- 
larged daily, for a whole winter, in the style of 
a child planning an excursion to a desert island. 
"It bored me to extinction," Catherine says. 
"I never knew anything so stupid. When he 
left me, it was a delightful relief to turn even to 
the most tedious book." 

Such was the daily round ; and if we are to 
understand Catherine, and do her justice, we 
must realise it. She had intelligence, character, 
vivacity ; she was at the age at which the joy 
of life is keen. Though she was only in her 
teens, she was far cleverer than any one in 
the circle fixed about her ; and she was not 
allowed to have a word to say in the choice 
of her companions. Her feelings must have 
been pretty much what those of an under- 
graduate would be if he were sent back to a 
34 



TRIBULATIONS OF MARRIED LIFE 



dame school and never allowed out of sight of 
the governesses. We need not credit her with 
any consciousness of genius, or any expecta- 
tions of the coming glories ; but we may feel 
quite sure that she resented the treatment — 
felt herself misunderstood and " put upon " — 
and looked forward to diverting herself when 
the hour sounded for her emancipation. 

And her emancipation, of course, though 
it might be delayed, was bound to come, and 
came. No sudden, or revolutionary, transition 
brought it ; but it arrived by degrees, through 
the mere efflux of time. A prisoner may be 
kept in prison for ever ; but a princess — espe- 
cially if she be a princess of charm, character, 
and intelligence — cannot be confined for ever 
in a gilded cage. She grows up and asserts 
herself ; she pushes against the barriers, and 
they yield, little by little, until they give way 
altogether. The vigilance of guardians relaxes ; 
and the Palace becomes less and less like a 
glorified poultry-run. 

It was so in this case. The discipline which 
was possible when Catherine was in her teens 
was no longer possible when she was in the 
twenties. Her settled destiny, after all, was 
to be the consort of an Emperor of Russia. 
Other people besides herself — the guardians 
in charge of her among the rest — realised that ; 
and the knowledge influenced their behaviour. 
It must have influenced them the more because 
of their perception that Catherine had a force 

35 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



of character which would have to be reckoned 
with whenever she attained to a position of 
independent initiative ; and her charm must 
also have counted, making friends for her 
who resented her treatment on her behalf, 
and might some day have the power of making 
things disagreeable for her enemies. She was 
not only fascinating to men, but gracious and 
friendly to women — sympathetic alike to both 
equals and inferiors. So, though we can 
lay our fingers on no definite incident, we 
find that, as the time passed, she gradually 
acquired more freedom of movement and a 
larger circle of acquaintances. 

That end was gained chiefly by the concilia- 
tion of her chaperon. Mme Choglokof had a 
husband who betrayed the trust reposed in him 
by making love to Catherine ; and Catherine 
rejected his advances. She says that she did 
so less from elevated principles than because he 
was ugly and stupid ; but it is not impossible 
that tact and prudence were also considera- 
tions which weighed with her. At all events, 
she behaved with tact, earning Mme Choglo- 
kof s gratitude by the propriety of her conduct, 
while, at the same time, keeping M. Choglokof 
in a good temper by not leaving him entirely 
without hope. The result was that husband 
and wife agreed to strain points in order to 
make things more pleasant for her, with the 
result that presently opportunities for flirtation 
once more presented themselves. 
36 



FLIRTATION 



The next flirtation was with Zachar Czerni- 
chef, a brother of the Andrew Czernichef whom 
we have seen detected conversing with Catherine 
through her half-opened bedroom door. Zachar, 
like Andrew, was a dashing young Guardsman, 
whose duty brought him to the Palace. He 
" made the running " quickly by telling Catherine 
that she was beautiful. " It was the first 
time," she writes, " that anyone had paid me 
such a compliment. I rather liked it, and, 
what is more, I believed it." After that, 
they corresponded by means of " devises," — 
rhymes and mottoes, that is to say, such as 
are incorporated, nowadays, in Christmas 
crackers, — Princess Gargarin playing the part 
of postman. This interchange of sentimental 
couplets was succeeded by an interchange of 
sentimental letters ; and presently, at a masked 
ball, the dashing young Guardsman got his 
chance of making a whispered declaration. 

He had much to say, he whispered, that 
he dared not put on paper. Might he not come 
to Catherine's room, for a moment, in order to 
say it ? 

" I told him it was quite impossible — that 
no one could enter my rooms, any more than 
I could leave them, unobserved. He offered 
to disguise himself, if necessary, as a domestic 
servant ; but I refused, point blank, to let him 
do anything of the kind, and we got no further 
than this exchange of complimentary mottoes." 

37 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



We have only her word for that, of course ; 
but we need not be cynically sceptical. Though 
some letters have been published which lend 
themselves to a different interpretation, the 
story reminds us of nothing so much as a school- 
girl's first experiment with the grand passion 
over the garden wall, though Catherine was, 
in fact, two-and-twenty at the time. Things 
were not to happen quite so innocently when 
Sergius Soltikof came upon the scene. 

Catherine owed her acquaintance to Sergius 
Soltikof to the complaisance of her chaperon. 
She constantly, at that time, sat in Mme 
Choglokof's apartments instead of her own ; 
and Mme Choglokof " received." Among other 
guests she received Sergius and his friend 
Leon Narishkin — the latter famous for his wit, 
and the former for his handsome presence. 
Knowing her own husband's propensities and 
inclinations, she may be supposed to have had 
her own reasons for wishing to introduce Cather- 
ine to the society of other men ; and Sergius, 
whom Catherine writes of as " beau comme 
le jour," showed himself a consummate tactician 
in dealing with his rivals. 

He persuaded M. Choglokof that he was a 
poet ; and whenever he wanted to get rid of 
him, he sent him into the corner by the stove, 
to write a song. He also persuaded Leon 
Narishkin that he was a musician, and induced 
him to compose airs for Choglokof's songs, and 
try them over with him. " By those means," 
38 



SOLTIKOF 



Catherine explains, " we were enabled to con- 
verse without embarrassment ; " and the con- 
versation soon took the course which might 
have been expected. Sergius, that is to say, 
unmasked his batteries ; and Catherine threw 
up defences — of a sort — 

66 6 How about your wife ? ' I said to him. 
4 You married her only two years ago. It 
was a love match. We ail know that you are 
still in love with her, and that she loves you 
to distraction. What will she have to say 
about this ? ' He replied by assuring me that 
all was not gold that glittered, and that he 
was now paying a heavy price for a momentary 
blindness." 

And Catherine — so she says — pitied him, 
but nevertheless withstood him — " all through 
the Spring, and for part of the Summer " — in 
spite of the fact that she met him nearly every 
day. She tried — so she relates — to check his 
ardour by the remark : " For anything that you 
can tell, my heart may already be Another's." 
She was surprised — so she would have us believe 
— to discover that the challenge increased his 
ardour instead of diminishing it ; and then 
there came a crisis, of which the Memoirs give 
a graphic description. 

The scene was an island on the Neva belong- 
ing to Choglokof, where a hunting party was 
assembled. Sergius contrived that he and 

89 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



Catherine should be alone together while the 
others were pursuing the hares, and seized the 
opportunity to plead his suit again — 

" I did not reply, and he took advantage of 
my silence to go on speaking of his passionate 
attachment, and begged me to let him hope 
that he might not be quite indifferent to me. 
I told him I could not possibly prevent him 
from indulging any dreams he liked. Then he 
compared himself with the other men attached 
to the Court, and made me admit that I pre- 
ferred him to them, and drew his inferences. I 
laughed ; but I am bound to admit that I liked 
him. After our conversation had lasted about 
an hour and a half I told him he must go, as 
so long an interview would be likely to arouse 
suspicions. He refused to go unless I told him 
that I found his society agreeable. ' Yes, yes, 5 
I said, 6 but make haste and go. 5 6 You've said 
it, 5 he replied, as he galloped off. ' No, no, 5 I 
called after him. ' Yes, yes, 5 he repeated ; and 
so we parted. 55 

They met again at supper, however, being 
detained on the island by a change in the 
weather. It was Sergius 5 s opportunity to say 
that the heavens favoured his suit, seeing that 
the storm had vouchsafed him a few more hours 
of Catherine's company ; and Catherine declares 
that she, on her part, was very displeased with 
herself. " I had thought, 55 she says, " that I 
40 



SOLTIKOF 



should be able to calm and control both his 
hot head and mine ; but now I realised 
that this would be difficult, if not impos- 
sible." 

The atmosphere there is very different from 
that of the flirtation with Andrew Czernichef 
through the half-opened door, and more charged 
with passion even than the atmosphere in which 
sentimental " devises " had been exchanged 
with Andrew Czernichef's brother. Catherine 
appears in the story triumphant at last over 
the Westerner's difficulty in distinguishing one 
Russian from another. Years and experience 
were telling — she was a grown woman, and 
serious. Her heart fluttered when she perceived 
an apparent breach in the continuity of Sergius 
Soltikof's attentions ; whereas the disappear- 
ance of her previous admirers seems to have 
troubled her but little. And the affair de- 
veloped in a manner which surprised her, and 
she found it smiled upon from an unexpected 
quarter. 

" Listen," said her chaperon one day. " I 
have something very serious to say to you ; " 
and this 44 something " was to the effect that 
there were exceptions to all rules — even to the 
rule that Grand Duchesses should be circumspect 
in their conduct and faithful to Grand Dukes. 
The Memoirs continue — 

44 4 1 love my country, 5 she said, 4 and I am 
in earnest in what I say, as you will soon dis- 

41 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



cover. You are in love. It must be either 
Sergius Soltikof or Leon Narishkin. If I am 
not mistaken, it is the latter.' ' No, no, it isn't,' 
I exclaimed. 'No matter,' she rejoined; 'if 
it isn't one of them, it is the other.' To that I 
made no answer, and she continued : ' Very 
well. You will see that I, at any rate, shall 
throw no difficulties in your way.' I pretended 
not to understand, and she scolded me several 
times, both in town and in the country, whither 
we repaired after Easter." 

In reality, however, Catherine understood 
quite well ; and, indeed, the hint was much too 
broad for its significance to be missed. An heir 
was wanted. The Grand Duke would be the 
putative father of any heir born to Catherine. 
It was better that he should be the actual 
father too ; but, if that could not be, then the 
point could be waived, and those concerned 
could agree to make believe. That was what 
Mme Choglokof meant ; and it is not to be 
supposed that the idea originated with her, or 
that she threw out the suggestion on her own 
sole responsibility. It was a suggestion, at any 
rate, to which Catherine yielded; and on 20th 
September 1754 she gave birth to a boy. 

It cannot actually be proved, of course, 
either that Soltikof was, or that Peter was not, 
the father of this child ; and there is even a 
further element of mystery. The child was 
taken away from its mother by the Empress's 
42 



THE HEIR 



orders, and was not returned to her until after 
an interval of about six weeks. It is not certain 
that the child brought back was identical with 
the child which had been taken away. The 
belief was current — one encounters it even in 
the dispatches of ambassadors — that the Empress 
herself became a mother at this date, and that 
her infant was secretly substituted for Catherine's. 
The manner of the Empress's life was certainly 
such as to lend colour to the hypothesis, 
though her age — she was then forty-five — makes 
it improbable. It is necessary to note the 
rumour before proceeding to draw inferences 
from the treatment subsequently meted out to 
Catherine and her lover. 

It is treatment which certainly suggests 
that the authorities had connived at an ir- 
regularity, but now wished to prevent its con- 
tinuance after it had served its purpose, and 
even, so far as might be possible, to cover up 
all traces of it. Sergius Soltikof was entrusted 
with honourable but unimportant missions to 
foreign countries — first in Sweden and after- 
wards at Hamburg — and so kept out of the 
way ; and though Catherine was presented 
with roubles and jewellery as tokens of the 
Empress's favour, the personality of her Court 
was once more changed — for fear, presumably, 
lest her attendants, having acquired a taste 
for intrigue, might indulge it by conniving 
at irregularities which the authorities did not 
desire. 

43 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



Once more, therefore, she was relegated to 
a life of isolation — separated not only from 
Sergius Soltikof, who consoled himself elsewhere, 
but also from Mme Choglokof, who, from being 
her argus, had become her confidante, and from 
Princess Gargarin, who had made herself so 
useful in the carrying of love-letters. The 
society of Peter was, of course, no consolation 
for the loss ; for she tells us, in this part of her 
narrative, that he smelt horribly of wine and 
tobacco ; that the noise in his apartment, which 
adjoined hers, was like the racket in a guard- 
room ; that he got disgustingly drunk on the day 
of her confinement; and that he, shortly after- 
wards, picked a quarrel with her and went so 
far as to threaten her with his sword. But she 
had grown up. She was now twenty-five, and 
she had tasted liberty. Whatever irksome 
restrictions might be placed around her, it was 
no longer possible to treat her quite as a child. 
Unless she were actually imprisoned — which no 
party proposed — she was bound to find oppor- 
tunities of emancipation. 

How she found them — and how she availed 
herself of them — is what we have now to see ; 
but we must first do her the justice of noting 
that her original divagation from the straight 
path was not spontaneous but suggested — that 
temptation was deliberately thrown in her way, 
and that she did not yield to it until those under 
whose tutelage she was placed pressed her to 
do so. 
44 



CHAPTER V 



Removal of Restrictions — Liaison with Poniatowski — The 
Intrigues of Bestuchef 

The Court at which Catherine was seeking, and 
obtaining, emancipation was an emancipated 
Court, with an emancipated Empress at the head 
of it. One may help oneself to form some 
notion of its tone by recalling that one of 
Elizabeth's favourite diversions was to arrange 
dances at which the men were required to wear 
skirts and the women to wear breeches ; 1 her 
idea being that she herself looked well in breeches, 
whereas other women looked ridiculous in them. 
It may be argued that such gaieties are, in them- 
selves, innocent and harmless ; but the fact 
remains that they do not often, in practice, 
occur in conjunction with Puritanical standards 
of morality. 

Nor did they in this instance. It has al- 
ready been said that Elizabeth was frivolous ; 
and it may be added that her levity was notori- 
ous even in the age of Louis xv. She had 
" favourites " ; and, as she did not make a 

1 At another Court entertainment all the women were re- 
quired to appear in wigs with shaven heads. 

45 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



point of confining her favours to a single 
favourite, it hardly matters, so far as religion 
and morality are concerned, whether she was 
or was not secretly married to one of them. It 
has been written that the privileged men who 
shared her favours regarded themselves "not as 
rivals but as colleagues " ; and it is also recorded 
that she and her favourites used to get drunk to- 
gether. One of Peter's offensive eccentricities, 
indeed, consisted in boring peep-holes through 
the wall of her apartment in order that he and 
his boon companions might pry upon her at 
her hours of ease and inebriety; and public 
opinion agreed in regarding it as more im- 
portant that the Grand Duke should behave 
like a gentleman than that the Empress should 
keep sober. 

And she did not keep sober, but became 
a more and more graceless creature as middle 
age approached. She was good-natured and 
soft-hearted ; but circumstances had been too 
much for her, and now her ruling passion was 
terror. Remembering the palace revolution 
which had raised her to power, she lived in dread 
of being dethroned in her turn and receiving the 
treatment which had been meted out to others 
in her name. Visions of the dagger, the bowl, 
the rope, and the dungeon haunted her in the 
midst of her most ostentatious pleasures. Drink, 
prayer, and cards were the various anodynes 
with which she sought to calm her fears. She 
spent hours on her knees, and then other hours 
46 



GREATER FREEDOM 



at the gaming-table, not getting to bed until 
five o'clock in the morning. She used several 
bedrooms, so that no assassin might know where 
she meant to sleep on any given night, 1 and often 
contented herself with lying down for a few hours 
on a couch. She distrusted her favourites and 
yet clung to them. 

High moral principles, it is clear, could not 
flourish in that atmosphere. The Empress was 
always ready to sacrifice her highest principles 
to any reasons of state; and her courtiers and 
ministers followed her example, if they did 
not anticipate it. We have seen them doing 
so in the case of the Soltikof affair, and we 
shall see them doing so again. Bestuchef, 
the Chancellor, certainly did not allow moral 
scruples to shackle him when higher interests 
were at stake. There is excellent reason to 
believe that Soltikof received from him a hint 
very similar to that which Catherine received 
from Mme Choglokof ; and when Soltikof 
had acted on the hint, and been discreetly 
removed from a Court at which his presence 
was no longer desired, Bestuchef adopted an 
attitude of politic indulgence towards Catherine. 
Like other people, he looked forward, and fore- 
saw a time when it might be better to have her 
for a friend than for an enemy. He also under- 
stood that, while it might now be difficult to 
obstruct her in the path of pleasure, it might 

1 This habit is noted by the ambassadors quite in the early 
years of her reign. 

47 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



be possible, and profitable, to guide her in it. 
Young women, in short, would be young 
women, and there was no particular reason 
why they should not be if their husbands were 
unfaithful, as Peter notoriously was ; but, in 
the case of such a young woman as Catherine, 
it was important that her heart should be occu- 
pied by the right young man. 

So, if we may judge by his conduct, 
Bestuchef argued. The time was coming when 
he would want Catherine for a partner in 
political intrigue ; and the personality of her 
lover would then be a factor of consequence. 
If his own nominee were accepted for the post, 
a great point would have been gained. Just 
as it had suited him to accord a temporary 
support to Sergius Soltikof, so now it suited 
him to put forward Stanislas Poniatowski — 
and not only to put him forward, but even, 
when Poniatowski hesitated, to slap him on the 
back and push him forward. 

Poniatowski was the son of a Lithuanian 
domestic servant who had attained to pre- 
ferment by treachery and been given the hand 
of Princess Czartoryski as a portion of his re- 
ward. He was at this time — we are in 1755 — a 
youth of two-and-twenty who had " knocked 
about " in Paris and in London and shown some 
address in the art of making friends. In the 
former city he had been rescued from imprison- 
ment for debt by Mme Geoffrin ; in the 
48 



PONIATOWSKI 



latter he had won the confidence of Horace 
Walpoie's friend, Charles Hanbury Williams, 
spoken of by Dr. Johnson as " our lively and 
elegant, though too licentious, lyric bard " ; and 
Williams, being now appointed to succeed Guy 
Dickens as British Ambassador at the Russian 
Court, proposed to take the young Pole with 
him in some nondescript unofficial capacity. 

That is how he and Catherine came to meet ; 
and they met in circumstances which made it 
easy for their relations to become confidential. 
Bestuchef wished them to do so, and Williams 
wished it also. We need not try to follow all the 
currents and cross-currents of the diplomacy 
of the time ; but the essential fact is that 
Williams discovered Catherine as a potential 
force in politics. He had found the Empress 
amiable but impracticable — always ready to 
dance with him, but never ready to negotiate. 
He had found Peter hopeless — drunk, stupid, 
prejudiced, and inaccessible to new ideas. On 
the other hand, a conversation with Catherine 
at a supper-party satisfied him that she was 
no ordinary puppet princess, but a woman of 
intelligence, with a future — and also with weak 
points, by playing on which an intelligent envoy 
might make her useful. 

As a matter of fact, Williams did not succeed 
in making her quite as useful as he had hoped. 
Those cross-currents of which we have spoken 
interfered with the course which he proposed to 
steer. Though Catherine's hour was coming, it 
d 49 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



had not yet come. She had Bestuchef on her 
side ; but there was a tug- of -war proceeding 
behind the scenes between Bestuchef and the 
Schouvalofs, 1 and the victory was to rest with 
the latter. Hence the check which Williams's 
diplomacy in the end encountered. Still, he 
began his game well, though he did not finish 
it successfully. He discovered that Catherine's 
assailable points were her need for money and 
her passion for romance. He lent her money 
(receipts for about fifty thousand roubles of 
British Secret Service money have been pre- 
served) ; 2 and though he shrank from the 
adventurous course of making love to her in 
person, he contrived, with Bestuchef 's connivance, 
that Poniatowski should do so on his behalf. 

There was another candidate — a certain 
Count Lehadrof* He and Poniatowski were put 
forward on the same evening in a competition 
which one may almost describe as a beauty 
show, with the members of the Court for 
spectators and Catherine herself for judge. 
" I prefer the Pole," she replied to those who 
questioned her ; and it only remained to tell 
Poniatowski what she had said, and persuade 
him to take advantage of her preference. 

That task was entrusted to Narishkin, — the 
same Narishkin to whom we have just seen 

1 One of the Schouvalofs was the favourite of the Empress 
Elizabeth. 

2 A proposal to repay the money (which the British Govern- 
ment did not wish to accept) was the subject of some diplomatic 
correspondence after her accession to the throne. 

50 



PONIATOWSKI 



Soltikof preferred, — an amiable buffoon who 
hung about the Court and made himself gener- 
ally useful. It was not an easy task, for 
Poniatowski was timorous. He feared the fate 
of other lovers of Russian princesses who, it 
was whispered, had been favoured for a season 
and had then ceased to please, and been relegated 
— their mission accomplished — to the deepest 
dungeon of a frowning fortress or the remotest 
village of the frozen north. Such things had 
certainly sometimes happened as the tragic 
sequels of amours in Russian palaces ; and no 
one can say that Poniatowski' s apprehension 
was unnatural. Narishkin, however, persevered 
with him, and Catherine herself paid him a 
significant compliment; and so, to quote his 
Memoirs — 

" At last I screwed up my courage and 
ventured to write her a note. Narishkin 
brought me her answer the next day, and 
then I forgot all about Siberia. A few days 
later he took me to see her." 

Then follows his vivid description of her 
charms — 

" She was twenty-five, and had lately re- 
covered from her first confinement and reached 
the moment at which beautiful women are at 
the height of their beauty. She had black hair, 
a dazzlingly fair skin, a brilliant complexion, 

51 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



large, eloquent blue eyes, long black eyelashes, 
a Grecian nose, a mouth that seemed made for 
kissing, a trim waist, not too small, an active 
and yet dignified carriage, a soft and pleasant 
voice, and a laugh as merry as her disposition. 
Her manner was very caressing. She was quick 
at discovering every one's weak point ; and 
she was then paving her way, by winning the 
affection of her people, to the throne which she 
afterwards occupied so gloriously. Such was 
the mistress who became the arbitress of my 
destiny. My whole life was devoted to her — 
far more so than is usually the case with lovers." 

There are other touches : that the painful 
circumstances of Catherine's married life had 
driven her to books for consolation ; that she 
was as much at her ease in abstruse mathematical 
calculations as in the give-and-take of playful 
repartee. It is the portrait of a lover who was 
indeed in love, and who laid an innocent and 
unsophisticated heart at her feet ; and it is also 
the first lifelike and convincing portrait which 
we possess. Catherine herself, in her own 
narrative, hardly reveals herself an individual ; 
but her lover does reveal her. Now that he 
has spoken, we have no longer to make what 
we can of anecdotes clustering round an illustrious 
name, but can perceive the real charms of a 
real woman, and divine her energy and ambition. 
Politically, Poniatowski was little more than a 
child in her hands ; but he was a child who 
52 



PONIATOWSKI 



understood. He felt Catherine's potential as 
well as her actual significance ; and there are 
many little touches in his story which, though 
they throw no light on the wire-pulling and 
secret diplomacy of the time, enable us to 
picture his mistress's position, and the tone 
which those about her took towards her amours. 

She had outgrown tutelage, but she was 
suspected and spied upon by one party while 
the other intrigued with her. She could at last 
live pretty much as she liked, provided that she 
indulged her fancies with discretion, paid virtue 
the homage of a decent hypocrisy, and did 
not give her amours too obvious a political 
complexion. There was no real mystery about 
her relations with Poniatowski, but a certain 
pretence of mystery had to be kept up. He was 
smuggled to her apartments, and sometimes 
concealed in them when she received other 
visitors. She sallied from the Palace in disguise 
to keep appointments with him in the houses 
of persons in her confidence. If everybody did 
not know all about it, anybody might easily 
have done so ; but nobody minded — not even 
her mother-in-law — not even her husband. 

Peter's attitude in the matter, indeed, is the 
subject of a queerly characteristic story, which 
is related by too many independent witnesses to 
be disbelieved. One of his officers, it seems, 
caught the lover prowling about the Palace in 
disguise, refused to accept his explanation that 
he was a tailor going about his sartorial business, 

53 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



took him by the scruff of the neck, and dragged 
him into the Grand Duke's presence. The en- 
suing conversation is thus reported by the French 
Ambassador, M. de l'Hopital : — 

" I know all about your relations with the 
Grand Duchess," said the Grand Duke, " and I 
suspect that you also have designs against myself. 
I see you are carrying pistols." " What an ex- 
traordinary suspicion ! " " What ! Your only 
object is to see the Grand Duchess ? Very 
well, friend Poniatowski ! Go and have supper 
with her ! I too have a mistress, as you know." 

Poniatowski himself, relating the same 
incident, says that the Grand Duke actually 
fetched the Grand Duchess from her bed, and 
brought her to him, without giving her time 
even to put on her stockings ; and he goes on — 

" I often used to go to see them at Oranien- 
baum. I used to arrive in the evening, and find 
my way to the Grand Duchess's apartment by 
a back staircase. There I used to meet the 
Grand Duke and his mistress. We used all to 
have supper together, and, after supper, the 
Grand Duke used to retire with his mistress, 
saying, ' There you are, my children. You 
don't want to see any more of me ; ' and I was 
free to stay as late as I liked." 

Such was life ; and we cannot get the per- 
spective right, and do justice to Catherine, 
54 



PONIATOWSKI 

unless we realise that life was such — that she 
was no freak of frivolity, but was only living as 
every one expected her to live. It occurred to 
no one that a Grand Duchess, neglected by her 
husband and admired by other men, would 
chastely repel all ardent advances. The British 
Ambassador was of one mind in that matter with 
the Russian Chancellor. He encouraged Catherine 
by assuring her that, if she were firm, and let it 
be clearly understood that she would regard an 
affront to the man whom she favoured as an 
affront to herself, she would find that she was 
allowed to live her own life without interference. 
He also arranged — or allowed it to be arranged 
— that she and her lover should meet for their 
first interviews at the house of the British Consul ; 
and Bestuchef simultaneously contrived to es- 
tablish Poniatowski's position on a securer basis 
by inviting his nomination as the diplomatic 
representative of Poland. 

The love affair, in short, was a move in a 
great political game. The object of English 
policy was to save Frederick the Great from 
destruction by the allied forces of France, 
Austria, Saxony, and Russia ; and British gold 
was being poured out freely to that end. Cather- 
ine wanted money ; Bestuchef wanted money ; 
all sorts of people wanted money. Williams's 
dispatches are full of reports of their require- 
ments. He asks that Bestuchef, whose stipend 
is only 7000 roubles, shall be promised a British 
pension of £2500 a year. He announces that 

55 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



Funk, the Saxon Ambassador, not having received 
any stipend recently from his own Government, 
is willing to sell his influence for a pension of 
500 ducats, and that Bestuchef's private secre- 
tary can be bought for a pension of 250 ducats 
— and so forth. 

Bestuchef, at the same time, was playing 
a game of his own as well as the game of the 
British Ambassador. He recognised Catherine 
as the rising sun, and wished to stand well 
with her in view of contingencies. He knew 
that Peter was in bad odour with the Empress, 
whose pleasures he had spied upon, as we have 
seen, through peep-holes, and whose devotions 
he also disturbed by pacing the chapel with 
clanking military accoutrements and talking at 
the top of his voice when she engaged in prayer. 
He further knew — what was obvious to all the 
world — that Peter preferred his mistress, Eliza- 
beth Vorontsof, the ugly sister of the Vice- 
Chancellor of the Empire, to his wife ; and 
that the bad feeling in that quarter was fraught 
with exciting possibilities. 

It was possible that Peter would wish to 
repudiate Catherine and her child — which might 
not even be hers. It was also possible that 
the Empress, whose health was visibly declining, 
would name the child as her heir instead of 
Peter, and that Catherine would be the Regent 
during the child's minority. The time was 
visibly approaching when men in prominent 
positions would have to take sides; and he 
56 



PONIATOWSKI 



divined that Catherine's side would be the 
best to take — especially as she did not like 
the Schouvalofs, and the Schouvalofs did not 
like him, but were intriguing for his overthrow. 
So he who had once forbidden her to corre- 
spond with her own mother except through 
the medium of the Foreign Office now not 
only smiled upon her love affairs, but engaged 
in mysterious and underhand negotiations with 
her. She writes of herself, at this period, 
as deciding to take an " independent course " ; 
and the French Ambassador reports her as 
figuring at the head of a cabal. 

There were, in fact, two cabals manoeuvring 
at the Court at the time : the Anglo-Prussian 
cabal, represented in St. Petersburg by Cather- 
ine and Bestuchef ; and the Franco- Austrian 
cabal, associated more or less with the Schouva- 
lof interest. Time was on the side of the 
former ; but the latter were the stronger at 
the moment. The Empress did not die as 
soon as Bestuchef and Hanbury Williams ex- 
pected, and consequently the Schouvalofs won 
the first tricks in the game. Their first triumph 
consisted in ordering Catherine's lover to return 
to Poland ; 1 their second, in causing Bestuchef 
to be arrested, on 26th February 1758. And, 
Russia being what Russia was, the arrest of 
Bestuchef implied grave danger for Catherine. 

A plot was suspected. It was also suspected 

1 He ultimately went, but remained some time in hiding in 
St. Petersburg, seeing Catherine secretly. 

57 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



that Catherine was implicated in the plot. 
Bestuchef s house was being searched for com- 
promising correspondence. If anything were 
found, Catherine would assuredly be asked 
for explanations, and her explanations might 
not be accepted. 



58 



CHAPTER VI 



Catherine suspected of Complicity with Bestuchef — A Scene 
with the Empress — Return of Poniatowski to Poland — 
Catherine's consolatory adventures 

Happily for Catherine, no really compromising 
documents were brought to light. She had 
burnt Bestuchef's letters, and Bestuchef had 
burnt hers — a reassuring note to that effect, 
hastily scrawled at the last minute, was smuggled 
to her. There existed only her letters to 
General Aprakhsin, who was at the seat of 
war, and some letters from Bestuchef to Ponia- 
towski, in which her name appeared — one does 
not know in what precise connection. On the 
whole, therefore, the case against her was 
weaker on paper than in the minds of her 
accusers. It was the kind of case, in short, 
which could only be pressed against a weak 
antagonist — the kind of case to which the best 
answer was the bold attitude of a courageous 
personality. 

Catherine realised that, and rose to the 
occasion. We have seen how her personality 
appeared to the man who loved her ; we may 
now note how it impressed an impartial stranger. 

59 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



The Chevalier d'Eon was in St. Petersburg at 
about this time, and this is the character sketch 
which he wrote of her — 

" The Grand Duchess is romantic, ardent, 
passionate. Her eyes shine, and her expression 
fascinates one, like the glassy gleam in the 
eyes of a wild beast. She has a high forehead, 
and, if I am not mistaken, there is the mark 
on that forehead of a long and appalling future. 
She is friendly and affable in her manner, but I 
instinctively shrink from her when she approaches. 
She frightens me." 

That is an illuminating touch ; for a great 
deal depends, at such a crisis, one may be 
sure, upon the look in the eyes of the accused ; 
and the look which impresses and prevails is 
not the look of martyred innocence, but that 
of indignant challenge. We must picture 
Catherine's eyes at this juncture as the eyes 
of an angry woman who would carry the war 
into the enemy's camp, divide in order to 
conquer, as only a beautiful woman can, and 
even, if need were, throw up a window and 
thrust her head out, demanding who was on 
her side. Such a woman may be crushed by a 
strong case, but not by a weak one ; and this 
case was weak — and Catherine knew it, and 
took her measures accordingly. 

She was a guest, on the night of her peril, 
at a ball given in honour of Narishkin's wed- 
60 



BESTUCHEFS PLOT 

ding ; and she questioned the Master of the 
Ceremonies as to Bestuchef s arrest, and got a 
reassuring answer : " We had our orders and 
obeyed them ; but as to the crime, we are 
still in the dark. The investigations have not 
yet produced much result." She next made 
her arrangements for an interview with Ponia- 
towski at the Court theatre ; and when diffi- 
culties were made, asserted her rights and put 
her objectors in the wrong with unexpected 
energy. Her maids- of -honour w T ould not be 
allowed to accompany her ? Then she would 
go without them. Her carriage would not be 
available? Then she would go on foot. And 
not only that. She would appeal, over the 
heads of the Schouvalof faction, to the Empress 
herself. She did not believe that the Empress 
knew how she was being treated ; but she would 
tell her. There was her letter, and Alexander 
Schouvalof himself must deliver it. 

The Schouvalofs, in brief, had sown the wind 
and now discovered that there was a whirlwind to 
be reaped. Catherine's fury was like a tornado 
sweeping all obstacles before it. Alexander 
Schouvalof dared not suppress the letter ; and, 
in case he might try to persuade the Empress 
to ignore its appeal, another spring was pressed. 
Catherine sent for her confessor, who was also 
confessor to the Empress, kept him at her 
bedside for an hour and a half, and charged him 
to carry a message in which her political griev- 
ances and her personal grievances against her 

61 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



husband were inextricably mixed up. She 
begged to be allowed to leave the country in 
order to escape from persecution ; but, first 
and foremost, she craved an audience. 

Her prayer was granted, and she was 
fetched from her bed to the audience at one 
o'clock in the morning. The Empress, whose late 
hours we have noted, received her in her dimly 
lighted bedroom. Her husband and Alexander 
Schouvalof were present ; and there was a 
screen at the end of the room behind which 
Ivan Schouvalof was hidden. On a tray on one 
of the toilet tables lay a little heap of neatly 
docketed letters. These were the " pieces of 
conviction "- — the incriminating correspondence 
(if, indeed, it was incriminating) discovered by 
means of perquisitions and domiciliary visits. 
Catherine had been summoned to be placed on 
her defence, if not actually on her trial. But 
she did not wait to be interrogated. She 
knelt to the Empress, and begged a favour. 
She was the victim, she said, of shameful perse- 
cution — might she not be sent home to her 
parents ? And then — 

" How can I send you home ? Remember 
that you have children." 

" My children are in your hands. They 
could not be in better hands. I trust that you 
will not forsake them." 

" But how am I to explain your dismissal to 
the public ? " 
62 



BESTUCHEF'S PLOT 



" Your Imperial Majesty can tell the public 
the reasons for which I have fallen into disgrace 
with you and have incurred the hatred of the 
Grand Duke." 

" And what will you live upon ? " 

64 1 shall live as I lived before you did me 
the honour of taking me from my home." 

44 But your mother is in exile. She has 
been obliged to leave her home and settle in 
Paris." 

" I know it. She was thought to be too 
deeply attached to Russian interests, and has 
consequently been persecuted by the King of 
Prussia." 

It was a brave and brilliant beginning. It 
avoided the real issue, and appealed to patriot- 
ism and the public. It drew the admission 
that there was, indeed, a public which might 
have a word to say. It appealed to pity with- 
out any sacrifice of pride. It showed that 
Catherine was not afraid, and at the same time 
it moved the Empress. Tears were now mingled 
with Elizabeth's reproaches. She recalled the 
days when Catherine had been ill, and she had 
wept for her. She began to find it difficult to 
push home her complaints. There was a look 
in Catherine's eyes and a tone in Catherine's 
voice which discouraged and disconcerted her. 
And then Peter broke into the conversation, 
and gave Catherine her opportunity to divide 
and conquer — 

GS 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



" She has a nasty temper," said Peter, 
" and she is shockingly pig-headed." 

"If it is of me that you are speaking," 
replied Catherine, " I am very pleased to 
have the opportunity of telling you in the 
presence of Her Imperial Majesty that it is 
quite true that my temper is sharp towards 
those who advise you to treat me with injustice, 
and that I became pig-headed because I found 
that my endeavours to please you only caused 
you to show your dislike for me." 

" Your Imperial Majesty," pursued Peter, 
" can judge of her temper from her language. 
Let me tell you a story to show how nasty she 
can be." 

But Peter was not encouraged to tell his 
story. The Empress, for reasons which have 
been given, did not like him. Catherine, in 
fact, had seen letters in which the Empress 
had stated her candid opinion of Peter. In 
one of them she had called him " that damned 
nephew of mine." In another she had written, 
" My nephew is an idiot. The Devil take 
him ! " In so far as the quarrel was a domestic 
one, her sympathies were far more with his 
wife than with him. She paced the room, 
listening now to one, now to the other ; and 
she realised (as Catherine saw) that Peter only 
wanted his wife put out of the way in order 
that he might instal Elizabeth Vorontsof in her 
place. Of these two women (if she must choose 
64 



BESTUCHEFS PLOT 



between them) it was distinctly Catherine 
whom she preferred. So she snubbed Peter, 
and turned to Catherine, who did not flinch, 
but answered her questions fearlessly, and almost 
aggressively. 

It was true, she admitted, that she had 
corresponded with General Aprakhsin ; but 
what of that ? The letters did not convict, 
but acquitted her. There they were, on the 
tray on the toilet table. The Empress could 
see for herself that they contained nothing 
treasonable — nothing of the slightest conse- 
quence. In one letter she had told the General 
what people in St. Petersburg were saying about 
his conduct of the campaign in Prussia ; in 
another, she had congratulated him on the 
birth of his son. No more than that. 44 But 
there are other letters," objected the Empress. 
" Bestuchef says so." " Then Bestuchef is a 
liar." 44 I will have him questioned on the 
rack." 44 Your Majesty is Empress. I cannot 
prevent your Majesty from doing so." 

And so forth. It was not Catherine but 
the Empress who was giving ground in the 
encounter. Catherine had triumphantly taken 
the line that, if there were to be any more of 
this nonsense, she would leave the country. 
Elizabeth had formed, or confirmed, the opinion 
that Catherine was a woman of intelligence, 
whereas Peter was a fool. She was a little 
afraid of Catherine — a little afraid also of her 
own advisers. She indicated to Catherine that 
e 65 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



she had much to say to her which could only 
be said when they were alone. Catherine replied 
that she too had " a pressing desire to open her 
heart." And so, at three o'clock in the morning, 
the interview ended ; but presently there came 
a knock at Catherine's door. 

The visitor was Alexander Schouvalof — so 
recently her accuser — who was now charged to 
say, with the compliments of the Empress, 
that Catherine must on no account distress 
herself ; that the Empress would accord her 
another audience, and this time would receive 
her alone. The triumph was as complete as 
that, and partially covered even Bestuchef's 
discomfiture. The case against him was allowed 
to drag on for nearly a year ; and, at the end 
of that time, though he was denounced in a 
public manifesto for " allowing himself, in the 
blindness of his ambition, to attempt to shake 
the confidence of the Empress in her well- 
beloved nephew and heir and her dear niece the 
Grand Duchess," he received no punishment 
beyond deposition from his office and the 
command to retire to his country house and 
stay there. And Catherine, meanwhile, remained 
on the friendliest terms with the Empress, 
as the British Ambassador — Keith, who had 
now succeeded Hanbury Williams — duly re- 
ported to his Government. 

That was in 1759, in which year Catherine's 
Memoirs come to an abrupt end with an un- 
finished sentence. She pictures herself, on the 
66 



RETIREMENT 

final pages, withdrawing from political activity, 
feigning indisposition, and turning over the 
first volumes of Diderot's Encyclopedic. Ap- 
parently she had had her lesson, and inferred 
that it would be wiser to wait for the future 
instead of anticipating it — to make friends 
quietly instead of making herself conspicuous 
by intrigue. According to one of her bio- 
graphers, she " shut herself up in impenetrable 
obscurity " ; while others attribute a senti- 
mental motive to her retirement. Poniatowski, 
to whom she had borne a child, — a daughter, 
who died in infancy, — and who had lingered on 
in St. Petersburg, under the pretence of ill* 
health, for some months after his deprivation 
of diplomatic status, was at last obliged to 
leave her ; and Rulhiere, of the French Em- 
bassy, represents her as refusing the society 
of all women " except those who, like herself, 
had loved Poles." 

Very possibly she gave the impression of 
doing so — for a little while. She was one of 
those rare women who can be deeply sentimental 
without averting their thoughts altogether from 
the main chance. We are not obliged to believe 
the report that she dropped from her bedroom 
window on to the shoulders of Bestuchef's 
butler, to be carried pickaback to her lover's 
arms ; but her heart was touched, even if 
she did not make that particular sacrifice 
of dignity. Poniatowski was, at any rate, a 
lover who was really in love, and not a mere 

67 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



gallant out for gay adventure. He cuts a 
very human and engaging figure in his Memoirs. 

He had that time sensible which meant so much 
to the women of the eighteenth century, and 
was so rare in Russia. He was to write to 
Catherine presently, assuring her that her love 
was more to him than a kingdom, and imploring 
her to summon him to her side instead of setting 
him on a throne. One cannot suppose her to 
have been unmoved by such unique devotion ; 
one cannot doubt that she gave sentiment its 
hour. 

But only its hour ; for she had other things 
to think about — as even Rulhiere admits. It 
was during this period, he insists, that she 
" laid the foundations of her greatness." He 
depicts her " rising at dawn and devoting whole 
days to the perusal of good French books," 
while, at the same time, learning " all that 
she ever knew of the arts of intrigue." He 
adds that " the veil of her grand passion covered 
several consolatory adventures." 

It certainly covered certain adventures with 
the brothers Orlof, though it might be hard to 
say how far those adventures were pursued for 
the sake of consolation and how far from 
ulterior and more ambitious motives. The 
atmosphere, at any rate, from 1759 onwards 
was quite as thick with intrigue as with amours. 
Elizabeth, like Charles n., was an unconscion- 
ably long time in dying, though she did not, 
like Charles, apologise for the delay ; but it 
68 



CONSOLATORY ADVENTURES 



was clear that she would die soon, and that 
her death would give the signal for a re- shuffling 
of the cards, and a fresh scramble for place 
and influence, in the course of which new men 
might come to the front. We may pause to note 
the names of those who expected parts in the 
coming drama, and observe them manoeuvring 
for position by the Empress's death-bed. 



69 



CHAPTER VII 

Intrigues by the Empress's Death-Bed — Panin — Princess 
Dashkof — The Brothers Orlof — Death of the Empress 
Elizabeth, and Accession of Peter in 

Nobody knows — nobody will ever know — ex- 
actly what happened during those days through 
which the conspirators were waiting for the 
Empress to die. Nothing — or hardly anything 
— was put on paper ; so that nothing — or 
hardly anything — can be proved. That was 
the principal lesson which Catherine learnt 
from the circumstances of Bestuchef's fall. It 
now sufficed for her to talk, — to drop hints, 
and pick them up, — to diffuse the impression 
that she would be found equal to any fortune, 
and that, if she were exalted to a high estate, 
her friends would prosper with her. 

Nor is it known for certain how and why 
the Empress died. It was said that she died 
of colic. It was also said that she died of a 
surfeit of cherry brandy — or perhaps of brandied 
cherries. Whatever the immediate cause of 
her death, it is tolerably certain that her days 
were shortened by her intemperance — and also 
by her fears ; for she was a weak and frivolous 
70 



DEATH OF THE EMPRESS ELIZABETH 



woman, thrust into a strenuous and perilous 
part which she was quite unfitted to sustain. 

Lestocq — the French surgeon and adven- 
turer who contrived the palace revolution of 
1741 — is said to have frightened her into 
taking the action which she took. The story 
goes that he picked up a pencil and drew two 
pictures which he showed to her. One of 
them represented Elizabeth as a nun, with a 
shaven head, immured in a convent, and him- 
self as a criminal about to be broken on the 
wheel ; the other depicted Elizabeth with a 
crown upon her head, and himself as a courtier 
seated on the steps of the throne. 64 You 
have to choose," he said. 44 You have to 
make your choice to-night." And she made 
her choice in haste and terror, scrambling on 
to the throne much as a shipwrecked mariner 
scrambles on to a rock or a piece of floating 
drift-wood. Whether her position was secure 
or not, she never felt it to be secure. 

Her temper, in reality, was mild and 
amiable. Ambassadors always found her 
charming. She was not without culture and 
taste for the fine arts. She encouraged the 
arts, if she did not know much about them. 
She meant well and kindly, and, left to her 
natural disposition, would hardly have hurt a 
fly. If ever she was cruel, it was because she 
was frightened into cruelty. Her favourites — 
or some of them, at all events — continued to 
love her even when she tired of them. Her 

71 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 

most memorable saying was that she had 
never been happy except when she was in love. 
But fear was, for many years, her dominant 
emotion. She dreaded the night because she 
knew that the night was the time for revolutions. 
She dared not, as we have seen, let it be known 
in what room she would sleep ; she dared not 
sleep except with a trusted servant, armed 
to the teeth, watching by her side — the whole 
Empire was searched for a retainer who could 
be relied upon not to doze. Long prayers and 
deep potations were her comforts. The prayers 
became longer and the potations deeper as the 
years rolled by. 

Women who live thus do not live to be old. 
Elizabeth only lived to be fifty-two ; and for 
the last two years of her life she saw con- 
spirators discounting her death, and consider- 
ing what advantage they would take of it. 
She could not even be sure, indeed, that they 
would wait for her death before snatching at 
the advantage. There was always a possi- 
bility that a party might be formed in favour 
of Ivan, whom she had deposed in infancy, and 
who had been brought up in prisons and 
monasteries. It is said that Ivan was deliber- 
ately drugged into imbecility, so that he might 
be harmless. It seems tolerably certain that 
he was perpetually transferred from prison to 
prison and from monastery to monastery, so 
that conspirators who wanted to proclaim him 
Emperor might not know where to find him. 
72 



PAN IN 



And the proclamation of Ivan was not 
the only possibility canvassed while Elizabeth's 
powers were failing. There was a party for 
Peter, and also a party against him. There 
was a party which was in favour of passing 
over Peter in favour of Catherine's boy, Paul, 
and making Catherine regent during Paul's 
minority. There was a party ready to support 
Peter in repudiating Catherine, declaring Paul 
illegitimate, and making Elizabeth Vorontsof 
Empress. They were all whispering at once 
round the death-bed : some of them urging 
the dying woman to settle the succession her- 
self in the sense in which they wished it settled ; 
others speculating whether it would not be 
better to have a forged will in readiness to 
produce at the hour when the inheritance fell 
in. And Catherine, meanwhile, was saying 
nothing, but working quietly — putting nothing 
on paper, but conciliating the friends who 
were presently to stand powerfully and use- 
fully on her side. Even the Schouvalofs were 
willing to be conciliated now, though it was 
not to them that she proposed to confide her 
secrets and entrust her fate. She wanted a 
statesman, a soldier, and a female confidante ; 
and she found Panin, the Orlofs, and Princess 
Dashkof. 

Panin, when a handsome youth of nine-and- 
twenty, had been proposed by Bestuchef for 
the post of favourite to Elizabeth. It is un- 
certain whether he shrank from the onerous 

73 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



responsibility of such functions or showed him- 
self unworthy of them. There is a story, for 
which Poniatowski is the authority, that the 
Empress waited and waited, expecting him to 
knock at her door, and at last peeped out and 
found that he had fallen asleep in the passage ; 
but that story may be malicious gossip. Be 
that as it may, he entered the Diplomatic 
Service, served with distinction at Copenhagen 
and Stockholm, and, on his recall in 1760, was 
appointed tutor to the Grand Duke Paul. He 
was now thirty-nine, and fat — too fat, and 
also too indolent, to be any longer eligible for 
the post of favourite. 

Though indolent, however, he was ambitious, 
and though corpulent, he was capable. When, 
in the course of time, he became Foreign Minister, 
the various Ambassadors sent home anecdotal 
photographs of his way of life. For instance — 

" He was devoted to the pleasures of the 
table, to women, and to gambling. By eating 
too much and sleeping too much, he had become 
a veritable ball of fat. He rose at noon, and 
listened to funny stories until one ; then he 
took a cup of chocolate, and spent three hours 
in dressing. At half-past three he sat down 
to dinner, and continued dining until five. At 
six he went to bed and slept until eight, at 
which hour his valets pulled him out of bed 
and set him on his legs. His second toilet 
finished, he sat down at the card-table and 
74 



PRINCESS DASHKOF 



played until eleven. Then came supper, and 
then more games of cards. About three, he 
retired to work, finally getting to bed about 
five." 

So writes Laveaux. He is a hostile witness ; 
but the evidence of the friendly witnesses is 
substantially the same. They merely add that 
Panin was as honest as he was obese ; and it 
is clear that he was also, in comparison with 
Catherine's other friends, experienced, discreet, 
and shrewd. There was Italian blood in his 
veins, — the Paganinis have claimed kinship with 
him,- — and one may perhaps think of him as 
an adipose and incorruptible Machiavelli. A 
faction inspired by him would move slowly, 
and keep open a line of retreat. He would 
remember, and insist upon, the maxim : Chi 
va piano va sano ; chi va sano va lontano. He 
would pull wires adroitly, and be careful to 
pull none which would set alarm bells ringing. 
His name, too, and his position, carried weight. 
He was a most valuable asset to the party, 
though he would keep in the background and 
leave violent action to others. 

Of Princess Dashkof one speaks with some 
hesitation, because it is almost impossible to 
do so without contradicting a lady. She was 
a V orontsof — a sister of the Elizabeth Vorontsof 
whom Peter preferred to his wife ; and she was, 
at this time, about eighteen years of age. Her 
Memoirs contain a full account of the conspiracy 

75 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 

which we are approaching ; and they give us 
to understand that she was the originator of 
it, and its inspiring genius. She tells us how, 
hearing that the Empress's end was at last 
imminent, she rushed to Catherine with the 
news, exclaiming breathlessly, u In the name 
of Heaven, place your confidence in me ; I am 
worthy of it." She adds that Catherine had 
" formed no sort of plan," and believed that 
there was nothing for her to do but to place her 
trust in God ; and she reports herself as saying, 
in reply to this admission, " Then your friends 
must act for you. As for myself, I have zeal 
enough to inflame them all." 

It cannot be. Girls of eighteen have never 
been as important as all that, at any period, 
or in any country. The view of Rulhiere, of 
the French Embassy, that Princess Dashkof 
was only " the excited fly on the wheel," taking 
all the credit for its revolutions, is more in 
accordance with the probabilities. Perhaps we 
may trust her for the spectacular details of the 
drama about to be described ; and we may 
certainly conclude that use was made of her 
— that she was trusted — that she went to and 
fro carrying messages. But that — except for 
one moment's useful activity — is all. She 
was confidante, but not conspirator - in - chief, 
though she magnified her role in later life, 
when she and Catherine had quarrelled and 
she wished to overwhelm Catherine with railing 
accusations of ingratitude. Catherine, at thirty- 
76 



GREGORY ORLOF 



two, was not the woman to ask a girl of 
eighteen to pilot her to a throne — to organise 
a party for her, and then to lead that party* 
That was a man's work ; and it was on men 
that she must lean. Long before Princess 
Dashkof burst into her bedroom with hysteri- 
cal offers of help, she had had her quiet talks 
with Panin, and also with the Orlofs, and 
more particularly with Gregory and Alexis 
Orlof. 

The name Orlof means eagle, and was be- 
stowed upon the founder of the family on 
account of his signal intrepidity. As a private 
soldier, implicated in a military revolt, he was 
condemned to death in 1689 ; but the cool courage 
which he displayed on the scaffold saved him at 
the eleventh hour. The ground was covered with 
the bleeding heads of comrades already executed. 
The indifferent air with which he brushed those 
heads aside as he took his own way to the block 
arrested Peter the Great's attention. Such a 
man, he said, must not die ; such a man, on 
the contrary, must be pardoned and promoted. 
So Ivan Orlof was rescued from the headsman's 
axe, and ennobled. He became the father of a 
Governor of Novgorod, and the grandfather 
of the five brothers who were to be Catherine's 
companions in the desperate adventure which 
she was preparing : Ivan, Theodore, Vladimir, 
Alexis, and Gregory — the two last named being 
Catherine's especial friends. 

77 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 

They were handsome young officers ; and 
Catherine always had a tenderness for such, 
though her tenderness seldom blinded her eyes 
to their intellectual limitations. The French 
Ambassador, in one of his dispatches, described 
Gregory in particular as " a perfect blockhead." 
But Gregory, blockhead or not, was the hand- 
somest man in the Russian army — and Alexis 
was the tallest and the strongest ; and they all 
had the reputation of officers whose men would 
follow them wherever they chose to lead ; and 
the Guard, as it had proved in more than one 
palace revolution, could, if it were unanimous, 
dispose of the destinies of Russia. The task of 
the Orlofs, therefore, in the rough work to 
come, was clearly marked out for them; and 
they could be depended upon, because Gregory 
had succeeded Poniatowski as Catherine's lover. 
Our first glimpse of him is in the Historical 
Memoirs of Sir Nathaniel Wraxall. 

Wraxall knew Wroughton — the British 
Consul in whose house we have seen Catherine 
and Poniatowski meeting, with the connivance 
of the British Ambassador. Catherine dis- 
tinguished Wroughton by " personal attentions 
of the most flattering nature " ; and Wraxall 
considered it " not an improbable supposition 
that she might have carried to the utmost ex- 
tent her preference of him " ; but that is not 
so certain. He was satisfied, at any rate, to be 
" her humble friend and servant " ; and, in that 
capacity, he received a confidence from her— 
78 



GREGORY ORLOF 



" Crossing the court of the Winter Palace 
at Petersburg, some time during the year 1760, 
the Grand Duchess, who leaned on his arm, 
pointed out to him a young man in the uniform 
of the Russian Guards, then in the act of 
saluting her with his spontoon. Vous voyez 
ce beau jeune homme. Le connaissez-vous ? 
Wroughton replying in the negative, II s'appelle 
Orlof said Catherine. Croiriez-vous qu'il a eu la 
hardiesse de me faire V amour ? II est bien hardi, 
madame, answered he, smiling. The conversa- 
tion proceeded no further ; but it remained 
deeply imprinted upon Wroughton' s recollec- 
tion, who from that moment silently anticipated 
the future favour of Orlof." 

WraxalPs French is probably at fault here. 
Catherine must certainly have said faire la cour, 
and not faire V amour, which means rather more 
than she would have been at all likely to say ; 
but that is a detail. The passage shows us 
the love affair beginning at a time when 
Catherine was only seeking " consolatory ad- 
ventures " to relieve her distress at the loss of 
Poniatowski, and had no glimmering idea of 
the purpose to which this particular adventure 
could be turned. 

The times being troubled, however, that 
idea gradually, and almost inevitably, took 
shape. Catherine was, or at all events soon 
might be, pretty much in the case in which 
Elizabeth had felt herself to be when Lestocq 

79 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



had scared her into action with his allegorical 
drawings. She was less easy to scare than 
Elizabeth ; but she was more ambitious — 
readier to believe, in short, that the best way 
out was the way on, and to consider the friend- 
ship of friends and the love of lovers from the 
point of view of the use which could be made 
of them. It was borne in upon her that, just as 
some men achieve their ambitions through the 
favour of women, so some women may achieve 
theirs through the favour of Guardsmen — and 
that the Orlofs were instruments made to her 
hand. They were stupid enough not to be 
the obvious objects of suspicion, but shrewd 
enough to know how to exploit military 
jealousies — the jealousies, in particular, which 
subsisted between the Guard and Peter's Hol- 
stein troops. 1 If their wits were not specially 
sharp, their nerves were imperturbable. Their 
role was to corrupt the Guard with drink, ready 
money, and lavish promises ; and they knew 
that the Guard had no objection to being 
corrupted, but was proud of its tradition as a 
Praetorian force which could make Emperors 
and unmake them. 

So the days passed, and the intrigues pro- 
ceeded ; and the Empress, lying on her death- 
bed, soothing her last hours with cherry brandy, 
— unless it was with brandied cherries, — was 
pressed to do and to say this, that, and the other 
thing, in order to commit her successors. Now 

1 Germans, and therefore unpopular with Russians 

80 



ACCESSION OF PETER III 



Ivan Schouvalof had her ear ; now her con- 
fessor, to whom Panin had breathed sugges- 
tions. Probably what happened was not ex- 
actly what anybody wanted. Certainly it was 
not exactly what Catherine and the Orlofs 
wanted — nor was it exactly what Peter wanted. 
Husband and wife would each have preferred 
to see the other pushed aside ; instead of which, 
a last attempt was made to make the peace 
between them. There was to be no question 
of any alternative heir, no question of a 
regency. Grand Duke and Grand Duchess 
were brought together to the bedside of the 
dying Empress ; and the Empress murmured 
the words which the priest prompted — 

" That she had always loved them ; and 
that, with her dying breath, she wished them 
all kinds of blessings." 

Then, on 5th January 1762, she died; and 
there was no revolution as yet, and no diver- 
sion — as those best informed had expected 
that there would be — of the agreed order of 
succession. Peter, in due course, received the 
formal message that the Empress " commanded 
him to live long " ; and he ascended the throne 
as Peter in., and was recognised by the Senate 
before the Guard had time to speak. 



81 



CHAPTER VIII 



Policy of Peter in. — Ill-treatment of Catherine — Her 
Conspiracy 

Everything, so far, had happened normally ; 
the normal course being, after all, the line of 
least resistance. The conspirators were not of 
one mind as to what they wanted. There were 
too many collateral or inter-related conspiracies 
for any one conspiracy to prevail. The con- 
spiracy of which Panin was the soul was not 
quite identical with the conspiracy in which 
the Orlofs were the moving spirits. There were 
wheels within wheels — conspiracies within con- 
spiracies. No one was quite ready, at the 
critical moment, to translate conspiracy into 
action. Catherine herself was unready, for an 
interesting reason. She was about to become 
the mother of a child 1 of which Gregory Orlof 
is presumed to have been the father. The 
result was that all the conspirators alike found 
themselves confronted with an accomplished 
fact : the accession, and the acceptance, 
without conditions, of Peter in. The Arch- 
bishop of Novgorod preached a suitable sermon, 

1 Brought up under the name of Bobrinski. 

82 



PETER III 



exclaiming, with suitable gestures, and in a 
suitable tone of voice, " Happy Russia ! God 
has exalted the chosen of His people." 

So far, so good ; and if Peter had been 
strong, or discreet, or well-advised, his accession 
might have been the end of his troubles instead 
of the beginning of them. But Peter, as we 
know, had none of these qualities. It did not 
much matter whether he was well or ill advised, 
because he would not listen to advice. He 
was weak, but stubborn, after the manner of 
drunkards ; a fool with interfering propensities. 
It did not occur to him that anything he 
did could have any consequences other than 
he intended ; and his attitude towards his 
Empire was like that of a child towards a new 
toy — he wanted to try experiments with it for 
which it was not designed, and to pull it to 
pieces in order to see the wheels go round. His 
position was not strong enough to stand that 
strain ; and he himself was neither strong 
enough to repair his errors nor keen-witted 
enough to see them. 

Some of his measures were commendable ; 
so that a partisan could make out a case for 
him. It could be argued that he was clement 
because he recalled political exiles from Siberia — 
Biren, Munnich, Lestocq, and various others. 
It could be argued that he loved his people 
because he reduced the tax on salt, and that 
he was broad-minded because he exempted 
the nobility from the obligation, previously im- 

83 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 

posed upon all of them, to serve the State 
either as soldiers or as civil servants. But 
the argument would have little value. The 
most praiseworthy of Peter's reforms were not 
really thought out. One can discover no guid- 
ing idea behind them — nothing but a love of 
change for its own sake; and they proceeded 
concurrently with other changes, and other 
lines of policy, which gave offence. In his 
drunken, pig-headed way, almost without know- 
ing what he did, — and certainly without weighing 
the consequences of what he did, — Peter flung 
out challenges in all directions : a challenge 
to Russian sentiment ; a challenge to the 
Russian army ; a challenge, above all, to 
Catherine. Owing to the impression created 
by the two former challenges, the last was 
taken up with an energy which surprised him. 

One of the objects of the Revolution of 1741, 
it will be remembered, had been to put an 
end to the exploitation of Russia by Germans. 
Peter reversed that policy, and made haste 
to recall Prussians from exile, and to give high 
command to Marshal Munnich. The one en- 
thusiasm of which he was capable was enthusiasm 
for Frederick the Great. He made no secret 
of his ambition to go to war, with Frederick 
the Great for his commander-in-chief ; and, 
as a step towards that end, he at once stopped 
the war in which Russia and Prussia were then 
engaged. At the same time, he proceeded to 
reform Russian military discipline on the 
84 



PETER III 



Prussian model ; raised his uncle, Prince George 
of Holstein, to the chief command ; and sub- 
stituted a Holstein regiment for his previous 
bodyguard. Nothing could have been more un- 
popular. If the hornet's nest was not actually 
stirred, at least it was humming with anger 
and in a state in which it would take very 
little to stir it. It was, indeed, as if Peter 
had simultaneously given Catherine a grievance 
and put a weapon into her hands. We shall 
see how she snatched at the weapon and used it. 

The trouble seems to have been simmering 
even when Peter's subjects were swearing allegi- 
ance to him — 

44 The hearts of the greater number of them 
were filled with grief, and with hatred and 
contempt for their future Emperor ; but their 
fears and their sense of their weakness over- 
bore these emotions. They all made haste to 
submit even before the Empress's eyes were 
closed." 

So M. Breteuil reports ; and a few days 
later he has something to say about the new 
Emperor's personal habits — 

44 The Emperor is leading the most shocking 
life. He spends all his evenings in smoking 
and drinking beer. He continues these diver- 
sions until five or six o'clock in the morning, 
by which time he is nearly always dead drunk." 

85 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 

Elsewhere we find the gaieties of the Palace 

compared with those of a guardroom, and read 
of the admission of actresses to the Imperial 
revels — actresses of the baser sort, who be- 
haved with the audacious familiarity of such, 
even in the presence of ladies-in-waiting and 
maids-of-honour. It is said that the wisest 
of Peter's decrees were drafted for him by 
clerks while he was engaged in these uproarious 
nocturnal recreations, and that he signed them 
in the morning without the dimmest apprecia- 
tion of their bearing. Some of the stories 
belonging to this category have, of course, been 
denied, and some of them may not be true; 
but we may safely trust the impression which 
they convey. Peter's most thoroughgoing ad- 
vocates never get further than denying that 
he was drunk on a particular occasion. They 
never venture to assert that he was sober on 
the whole, but leave us our picture of the throne 
of Peter the Great now occupied by Peter the 
Impossible. 

And Peter the Impossible was also Peter 
the Bully ; and the principal victim of his 
brutalities was his wife. That too is clear from 
M. de BreteuiPs dispatches — 

44 The position of the Empress is very cruel. 
She is treated with the most marked contempt. 
She bears with great patience the Emperor's 
insults and the haughty airs of Mile Vorontsof. 
It will be strange to me if this princess, 
86 



PETER III 



whom I know to be brave and energetic, is not 
presently tempted to some desperate course. 
I know friends of hers who are trying to calm 
her, but who would nevertheless risk their lives 
for her if she desired it." 

That already on 18th January. By 15th 
February M. de Breteuil has begun to put dots 
on the i's — 

" The Emperor has only seen his son once 
since his accession. Many people are of opinion 
that if his mistress should have a child, he 
would marry her, and make the child his heir. 
But the epithets which Mile Vorontsof has 
applied to him in the course of a quarrel 
are very reassuring from this point of view." 

And then on 14th April we read — 

"You know, of course, that M. de Soltikof 
is the real father of the Grand Duke. This 
M. de Soltikof was recalled by the Emperor soon 
after his accession, and is being treated by 
him with great distinction. After his return, 
it is said, the Emperor sent for him several 
times, and had several long conversations with 
him. Persons in the intimacy of the Empress 
believe that his purpose was to induce him 
to confess that he had enjoyed the princess's 
favours." 

And then, only two days later — 

87 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



" The Emperor has been to see Ivan." 

These extracts give us the skeleton of the 
plot which was proceeding and was to provoke 
the counterplot. Soltikof was to be induced, 
whether by threats or promises, to acknowledge 
himself the father of the Grand Duke Paul. 
On the strength of that confession, Paul was 
to be denounced as illegitimate and Catherine 
to be divorced. Peter would then marry Eliza- 
beth Vorontsof, and raise her to the throne in 
Catherine's place. If Elizabeth failed to give 
him an heir, then Ivan was to be fetched from 
his prison and adopted ; while Catherine was 
to be immured in a nunnery, with a shaven 
head. Catherine, in short, was being manoeuvred 
into just the same dilemma which had faced 
the Empress Elizabeth in 1741. She would 
have to choose between a nunnery and a throne ; 
and she was not the woman to prefer the nunnery. 

Exactly what hindered the execution of 
Peter's plan one cannot confidently say. Pre- 
sumably a good many circumstances conspired 
to hinder it. There may have been difficulties 
with Soltikof, who may have had honourable 
scruples, and hesitated to make a public boast 
of a lady's favours. There certainly were 
difficulties with Ivan, who proved to be of un- 
sound mind, and therefore unlikely to arouse 
the enthusiasm of the populace if the populace 
were allowed to see too much of him. Peter 
went to see him in his prison, and formed that 
88 



PERSECUTION OF CATHERINE 



impression. Catherine's friends, too, may have 
exercised a restraining influence ; while Peter's 
drunken habits, and intermittent quarrels with 
his mistress, may have interfered with the con- 
tinuity of his policy. 

In spite of Ivan, and in spite of Soltikof, 
his scheme might have succeeded if he had had 
the sense to keep sober and silent. Instead 
of that, he was noisy, violent, and irresolute ; 
preluding action with menace; letting " I dare 
not " wait upon " I would " ; and pursuing 
Catherine with a campaign of coarse insults which 
attracted widespread attention, and enlisted sym- 
pathy on her side. He summoned guests from 
her table to join a supper which he was giving 
to his mistress. He forbade her to take snuff, 
and deprived her of her snuff-box. He deprived 
her of fruit at her meals, for no other reason 
than because he knew that she liked it. He paid 
pointed attention to his mistress in her presence, 
and at a great dinner-party, at which four 
hundred guests were present, he called her 
a fool 1 — shouting the word down the table 
at the top of his voice. And then, as a cul- 
minating outrage, came the threat to divorce 
her, and shave her head, and send her to a 
nunnery. 

There can be little doubt that he really 
meant to do it ; and the orthodox must make 
what they can of the fact that, while the monks 

1 One so translates the word, but the expression actually 
used was much coarser. 

89 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



were shrieking with horror at Peter's schemes for 
the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, no 
ecclesiastic voice was raised in protest against 
the proposal to use a nunnery as a state prison 
for the repudiated spouse of a dissolute sovereign. 
Perhaps they will urge that it ill becomes the 
orthodox to be, morally or spiritually, in 
advance of their times ; perhaps that a little 
convent discipline would have been to Catherine's 
advantage. But Catherine was not the sort of 
woman to fall in with that view. If she had 
to choose between a nunnery and a revolution, 
she would prefer the revolution. If her husband 
came to a bad end in the revolutionary turmoil, 
so much the worse for him. He had begun 
the game of bowls, and he must take his chance 
of the rubbers. 

So Catherine argued ; so also argued those 
about her ; so especially argued Gregory and 
Alexis Orlof. It has been said that they were 
both her lovers — but, if so, they were like 
the lovers of the Empress Elizabeth, " col- 
leagues rather than rivals," and not in the 
least jealous of each other. Their plans — 
such simple plans as they thought necessary — 
were formed. The goodwill of the Guard had 
been bought — the French Ambassador had 
been asked (though he had refused) to lend 
money for the purpose. The hour had come 
to strike. Alexis Orlof knocked at Catherine's 
door to announce it, in the same simple and 
matter-of-fact style in which he might have 
90 



PERSECUTION OF CATHERINE 



announced that dinner was ready, or that the 
carriage was waiting — 

4 c It is time to get up. We are prepared to 
proclaim you Empress." 

But now we must go back a little, and see 
what had been happening to bring about this 
sudden crisis. 



91 



CHAPTER IX 



The Revolution of 1762 — The March against Peter 

Conspiracy, as we have noted, came, for the 
first time, to the surface when Catherine heard 
a tap, at two o'clock in the morning, at her 
bedroom door ; and the conspiracy which then 
emerged was not Panin's conspiracy but Orlof's. 
It emerged prematurely, and translated itself 
precipitately into action, because it was clear 
that otherwise it would be dragged to light and 
crushed. 

The Guard had been corrupted in part, but 
not entirely. There was some misunderstanding 
as to who was in the plot and who was not. A 
certain Captain Passik made the mistake of 
speaking of it in the presence of a soldier who 
had a grievance against him on account of 
punishments inflicted for breaches of discipline, 
and the soldier seized the opportunity to avenge 
himself. He denounced Passik to his superiors, 
and Passik was arrested. A courier was dis- 
patched to the Emperor with the news. The 
danger was imminent that Passik's secret would 
be extorted from him, together with the names 
92 



THE REVOLUTION OF 1762 



of his confederates, by means of the thumbscrew 
and the rack. 

Passik's disappearance, however, was at once 
remarked, for the confederates had taken the 
precaution of setting a special spy to shadow 
each of the leaders of the movement. The 
arrest took place at nine o'clock in the evening, 
and a quarter of an hour later Princess Dashkof 
was informed of it through a Piedmontese 
adventurer named Odart. This was the one 
moment at which she was, and had to be, 
something more than the fly on the wheel. 
Everything, for a brief space, hinged upon 
her resource and energy; and, girl though 
she was, she proved herself equal to her 
task. First of all, she knocked up Panin; 
and we need not stop to inquire into the 
truth of the report that she had previously 
inveigled Panin into the conspiracy by consent- 
ing to become his mistress. The essential fact 
is that Panin was too fat — perhaps also too 
timorous — to be hurried. He temporised ; he 
made long speeches ; he spoke of the horrors 
of civil war ; and he went back to bed. But 
Princess Dashkof did not go to bed. 

It was now nearly midnight ; and time 
pressed, for the courier was already well on 
his way to Peter's headquarters with the news 
of Passik's arrest. Many other arrests — enough 
of them to paralyse the movement — would in- 
evitably follow if the conspirators waited for 
the dawn ; but Princess Dashkof did not wait 

93 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



for it. She slipped instantly into her disguise of 
male attire, and ran out to look for the Orlofs. 
She was accustomed to meet them, as it were 
by accident, on one of the city bridges ; and 
there, by good fortune, she found them, and 
told them her story. According to her own 
statement, she then scrawled a note — " Come 
at once ; the matter is urgent " — and bade one 
of them gallop with it to Catherine ; but that 
is doubtful. It was their own conspiracy ; and 
they may be presumed to have known how to 
conduct it without waiting for directions from 
a girl of eighteen. At all events, they acted — 
and acted at once — without much further refer- 
ence to her. 

Neither Peter nor Catherine, it is to be 
noted, was then at St. Petersburg. He, as 
has been said, was at Oranienbaum — a summer 
seat, some distance down the Neva, opposite 
the island fortress of Cronstadt. She was at 
her summer seat at Peterhof, which lies on 
the way from Oranienbaum to St. Petersburg ; 
and she was sleeping, for reasons of her own, 
not in the Palace itself, but in a chalet in the 
garden. She could get to St. Petersburg, we 
must observe, more rapidly then Peter could ; 
and messengers from St. Petersburg to her 
had a shorter distance to travel than messengers 
to him — an important circumstance in view of 
the race against time which was now beginning. . 

With Peter at Oranienbaum were the 
members of his Court, and also his Holstein 
94 



THE REVOLUTION OF 1762 



troops ; and we know that between them and 
the Guard, stationed at St. Petersburg, a keen 
jealousy, not to say a violent animosity, sub- 
sisted. He was preparing to undertake a war, 
in the interest of his Holstein possessions, 
against Denmark. He had been warned that 
such a war would be exceedingly unpopular in 
Russia ; but he was obstinate, and would not 
listen to warnings. Vague rumours of dis- 
content and sedition in the capital reached 
his ears, but did not trouble him. He was 
amply supplied with beer and tobacco, and 
was enjoying himself. 

" All this sort of thing," reported the 
French Charge d' Affaires, " does not prevent 
the Emperor from living with absolute freedom 
from anxiety. He spends his time in drilling 
his soldiers, giving balls, and arranging operatic 
entertainments. He has taken all the prettiest 
women in St. Petersburg with him. I observe 
their husbands pacing the gardens of the capital 
with melancholy countenances." 

That was written on 6th July, and two days 
later the storm burst. 

Peter received the news of Passik's arrest, 
but did not appreciate its significance. All 
was well, he argued, because Passik was locked 
up. Time enough to deal with Passik when 
he had finished his debauch, and slept off its 
effects. He did not know that Passik, before 

95 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



they lodged him in his dungeon, had found a 
means of passing a friend a pencilled note : 
" You must act without delay, or all is lost " ; 
and he knew and suspected nothing of Princess 
Dashkof's midnight conference with the Orlofs 
on the bridge. He had arranged to go to 
Peterhof to celebrate the fete of his patron 
saint ; and he duly set out for Peterhof with 
his suite, which included seventeen of the 
pretty women above referred to. 

It is said to have been his intention, on 
arriving at Peterhof, to proceed, at last, to 
the arrest of his wife, and the shaving of her 
head, with a view to her long- contemplated 
relegation to a nunnery ; but whether that 
was actually so or not one cannot say. What- 
ever his intentions, he was too late to execute 
them. His nominal object in going to Peterhof 
was to keep the festival with the Empress ; but 
no Empress was there to receive him. He 
arrived at eight, but she had departed at two 
— none of the scared servants who were 
questioned could tell him why or whither. 
And that, of course, brings us back to the 
picture of Alexis Orlof tapping at her bedroom 
door, and waking Catherine from her slumbers 
with the news that everything was ready for 
her proclamation as Empress. 

44 Passik is arrested," he explained. " There 
is no time to lose. I have a carriage waiting 
for you." 
96 



THE REVOLUTION OF 1762 



Hearing that, Catherine dressed as quickly 
as she could, and got into the carriage with her 
maid. Alexis Orlof drove, and another officer 
sat behind as a footman. When the carriage 
broke down on the rough road, they impressed a 
country cart in place of it. Meeting the French 
barber, who was on his way to dress the Em- 
press's hair for the Emperor's dinner-party, 
they picked him up and took him with them, 
so that he might not gossip. Approaching 
St. Petersburg, they found Gregory Orlof and 
Prince Bariatinski waiting for them ; and so 
the wild gallop continued until they reached 
the barracks of the Ismailofski regiment, where 
the soldiers, half dressed and only half awake, 
quickly gathered round them, cheering. 

That was the end of the race through the 
white night of a northern midsummer, with a 
crown for the prize and the gallows as the 
penalty of failure. For a moment Catherine 
doubted whether she had really won the race. 
Very few soldiers were visible as yet ; and 
soldiers in night-shirts inspire less confidence 
than soldiers in uniform. They were hurrying 
from their beds, however, dressing as they came ; 
and Catherine did not wait for them to finish 
dressing before she began to harangue them — 
seizing her first chance to prove her metal, and 
proving it conclusively. 

She had heard, she said, of their devotion ; 
and she had come to throw herself on their 
protection. The Emperor had threatened her 
g 97 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



life — her life and her son's life also. The order 
for their execution had been issued, — the 
assassins were already on their way, — etc. etc. 
It may not have been quite true, but the 
Guardsmen believed it, and they understood 
that vodka would presently flow like water in 
their barracks ; so they shouted till the rafters 
rang, while Catherine called for a priest to 
consecrate her usurpation. 

And that as a matter of course. For, 
whatever priests may think, the rulers of the 
earth always look upon the Church as a branch 
of the Civil Service, and regard the clergy as 
humble, though useful, functionaries whose 
business it is to pray as they are told. That 
was Catherine's view of them, and the soldiers 
shared it. They fetched the regimental chaplain 
from his bed, and hustled him down into the 
barrack yard — soldiers on each side of him, 
gripping him firmly by the arm. They told 
him what to pray for, and he prayed for it. 
They told him to hold out the cross to be kissed, 
and he obeyed them. They swore allegiance 
on the sacred emblem ; and then they formed 
a procession, bidding the priest carry the cross 
aloft, and pushing him along in front. 

That at the very hour at which Peter was 
searching Peterhof in vain, vaguely realising his 
peril, and crying to Elizabeth Vorontsof in his 
despair, " Romano vna, will you believe me 
now ? Catherine has made her escape. I told 
you that she was capable of anything." And 
98 



THE REVOLUTION OF 1762 

truly Catherine was capable of a great deal — 
capable of more even than Peter had guessed 
in the days when, grateful to her for having got 
him out of some small difficulty, he had christened 
her Madame la Ressource. For while Peter was 
raising the hue and cry through the corridors 
and grounds of her summer pleasure-house, 
Catherine was marching from barracks to 
barracks in his capital, recruiting fresh adherents 
everywhere, releasing Passik from his prison as 
she marched. 

Only at the Preobrajenski barracks was 
there a momentary show of resistance. Eliza- 
beth Vorontsof's brother Simon was a captain in 
that regiment. He and a Major Voieikof meant 
to be loyal to their Emperor. They harangued 
their men, and led them forth, thinking to arrest 
Catherine, and met her force in front of the 
Kazan church. Street fighting seemed immi- 
nent ; but not all the officers, and very few of 
the men, were willing to follow their leaders. 
One of them tried what a sudden shout would 
do to break down discipline. " Hurrah ! The 
Empress ! The Empress ! " he cried ; and the 
cry was taken up, and the force of discipline 
was broken. Vorontsof and Voieikof could 
only break their swords and submit to be 
arrested. Their men joined forces with the 
mutineers ; and all of them streamed together 
into the church, where they first swore allegiance, 
and then knelt in prayer. Panin, who had been 
too fat to act precipitately, was not too fat to 

99 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



slip down from his fence and pray on the winning 
side. 

Prayer finished, the procession was resumed. 
Catherine's followers were now eighteen thousand 
strong, and in undisputed possession of the city. 
Some of them began to loot the house of the 
unpopular Prince George of Holstein ; but that 
was quickly stopped. The rest escorted Cather- 
ine to the Winter Palace, where the Senate and 
the Holy Synod arrived to pay their homage. 
Catherine sat down to dinner at an open window 
amid the plaudits. She lifted her glass and 
pledged the multitude, whose ringing cheers 
continued to resound. The Revolution, as the 
British Ambassador reported to his Government, 
had been effected in a couple of hours — between 
seven and nine o'clock in the morning — without 
the shedding of a single drop of blood : no 
material damage having been done, except that 
the rings of Princess George had been torn from 
her fingers, and the windows of a few wine- 
shops had been broken. Already the printing- 
presses were at work, and in the course of the 
morning manifestoes came pouring forth from 
them — 

" Her Imperial Majesty, having to-day as- 
cended the throne of All the Russias in response 
to the unanimous wishes and pressing solicita- 
tions of all her faithful subjects and all true 
patriots of this Empire, has given orders that the 
news of the event shall be communicated to all 
100 



THE REVOLUTION OF 1762 



the Foreign Ministers residing at her Court, 
and that they shall be assured that Her Im- 
perial Majesty desires to maintain friendly re- 
lations with the sovereigns, their masters. The 
Ministers will be informed, at the earliest possible 
moment, on what day it will be convenient for 
them to present their compliments to Her Im- 
perial Majesty and offer their congratulations." 

That was the form of the intimation received 
at the Embassies and Legations. Other mani- 
festoes, setting forth that Peter had been 
dethroned in consequence of his neglect of 
Russian interests and his contempt for Russian 
institutions, were simultaneously addressed to 
the Russian people. It was a bold and prompt 
beginning ; but it remained to be seen whether 
Peter's deposition would be more than pro- 
visional. The criticism has been passed on him 
that he let himself be deposed as easily as a 
naughty child lets itself be sent to bed without 
its supper ; but it could, by no means, be fore- 
seen that he would do so. 

Peter was not alone, but had fifteen hundred 
soldiers with him. They were Holstein men, 
assembled for the projected war with Denmark, 
and it was to be presumed that he could trust 
them. There were other Russian troops in 
Pomerania, and it might be that he could also 
reckon on them. For commander-in-chief he 
had Marshal Munnich ; and Marshal Munnich 
was a formidable warrior. He had beaten the 

101 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



Grand Turk in his time, and he might very well 
smash Catherine and her party now. It would 
not do, at any rate, for Catherine to sit still on 
her throne, regarding the battle as won. The 
only measure so far taken had been to guard the 
roads so as to prevent any messenger from 
carrying the news of what had happened to 
Oranienbaum ; but there was reason to believe 
that a messenger had got through before the 
roads were closed. 

That made it doubly desirable to act at once. 
So now that the first excitement was over, and 
the first Te Deum had been sung, a council of 
war was called in the Palace ; and while the 
exuberant soldiers were swilling their vodka, and 
playing football with their discarded Prussian 
accoutrements in the streets and barrack yards, 
all possible courses were debated, and the 
boldest course was chosen : to sound the " boot 
and saddle," and march on Oranienbaum with- 
out loss of time — Catherine at the head of her 
men in military uniform, with Princess Dashkof, 
also in military uniform, by her side. 



102 



CHAPTER X 



Surrender of Peter — His Deposition by Death in Prison — 
By whose Order was he killed 

The first messenger to reach Peter was a 
French footman who had not understood the 
sights which he had witnessed. Arriving at 
the moment when the Emperor was searching 
for the Empress under the bed and in the linen 
closets, he reported that there was no need 
to search further — that the Empress was not 
lost, but was at St. Petersburg; that the 
entire garrison was under arms, making magni- 
ficent preparations to celebrate the festival 
of Peter's patron saint. While Peter was 
wondering what to make of that story, however, 
and how to reconcile it with the story of 
Catherine's sudden flight in the small hours, 
a second messenger entered, bowing low, bowing 
repeatedly, making the sign of the cross, and 
finally delivering a letter which, he said, he 
had been instructed to place in the Emperor's 
own hands. Peter first read the note to himself, 
and then read it aloud. It ran thus — 

103 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



" The regiments of the Guard are in revolt, 
and the Empress has placed herself at their 
head. It is now nine o'clock. She is on the 
point of entering the Kazan church. The entire 
populace appears to be taking part in the move- 
ment. The loyal subjects of Your Majesty are 
afraid to show themselves." 

" I told you so," was fuddled Peter's 
luminous comment, but no strenuous action 
followed the remark. Vorontsof, his Grand 
Chancellor, proposed to go to St. Petersburg to 
remonstrate with the Empress, and that offer 
was accepted. "It is not I who am doing 
this. It is the Russian nation," was Catherine's 
answer to Vorontsof s remonstrances ; and the 
Grand Chancellor, observing the attitude of the 
mob and the army, thought it well to temporise. 
He suggested that Catherine should place him 
under arrest, and charge one of her officers to 
keep an eye on him. She did as he asked, and 
he made himself comfortable, happy in the 
thought that whoever triumphed, the victor 
would have no case against him. Other men 
of mark who rode off from Peterhof to St. 
Petersburg on the same errand were Prince 
Troubetskoi and Alexander Schouvalof ; and 
they also neglected to return. 

That was Peter's first hint that things were 
not what they seemed — that pillars of sub- 
stantial appearance could crumble, and seemingly 
solid forces melt away. He called for vodka, 
104 



DEPOSITION OF PETER 



and drank it — and then called for more vodka, 
and drank that. He paced the garden, cursing 
and swearing, and appealing to those who loved 
him to go and kill the Empress. He called for 
a secretary, and dictated manifestoes. He set 
the ladies and gentlemen of his Court to 
work copying the manifestoes. He ordered 
hussars to gallop off and distribute them 
among the peasantry ; he sent other hussars 
to scour the St. Petersburg roads for news ; 
and he summoned his Holstein troops from 
Oranienbaum, bidding them not forget the 
artillery. And then Marshal Munnich spoke. 

He was an octogenarian, and he had spent 
twenty years in exile in Siberia ; but he re- 
membered how he had hammered the Turks of 
old, and he stepped to the front now as the 
one man who was not afraid, but had kept his 
head and had wit enough to form a plan. It 
would be futile, he urged, to stay at Peterhof. 
Twenty thousand men would be thundering 
at the gates of Peterhof before it could be put 
in a state of defence — resistance there could 
only result in massacre. But Cronstadt was 
near ; and the fleet and the garrison were loyal 
— a courier had just ridden in to say so. To 
Cronstadt first, then, and thence back, with 
overwhelming forces, to St. Petersburg and 
victory. A yacht was ready to weigh anchor. 

It was the best course, if not the boldest; 
but Peter would not take it. He had been 
drinking vodka — tossing off glass after glass of 

105 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



it — and the strong drink had given him a 
stubborn drunken courage. He remembered 
that he was a soldier, and spoke as he con- 
ceived that a soldier ought to speak. He 
declared that he would fight where he stood 
— that it was absurd to run away from the 
enemy before they came in sight. The courtiers 
reasoned with him — even the Court jester made 
serious representations, but he swore at them, 
and called them cowards, and began to make his 
tactical dispositions, giving orders that certain 
low hills should be occupied. 

But then, at eight o'clock in the evening, 
the whole day having been thus lost, there 
came fresh news. An aide-de-camp galloped 
up with the report that Catherine and the 
Guards were marching on Peterhof — that their 
scouts might come in sight at any moment. At 
that the Emperor's drunken courage collapsed. 
He and his scared Court ran in a sudden 
panic to the water-side. Men and women to- 
gether, they tumbled into the yachts, hoisted 
the sails, and put out the oars, and made what 
haste they could, following in terror the course 
which Munnich had urged them to take with a 
bold heart. But they had delayed, and the 
delay was their undoing. In the morning — or 
even in the early afternoon — Cronstadt might 
have been Peter's ; but by this time it was 
already Catherine's. It had been a race against 
time : Catherine had had the longer distance 
to cover ; but Catherine had started first. At 
106 



DEPOSITION OF PETER 



the council of war which had settled the march 
on Peterhof, Cronstadt had not been forgotten. 
It had been remembered late in the day, but 
it had been remembered at last ; and, when 
it was remembered, instant action was taken. 
Admiral Talitzin had been sent off alone, in a 
swift cutter, to win the garrison over to Cather- 
ine's side ; and he had discharged his errand. 
The Governor of Cronstadt was under arrest, 
and Talitzin was in command. So when the 
yachts arrived at ten o'clock and tried to land, 
there passed this dialogue — 

" Who goes there ? " 
" The Emperor." 

" We have no Emperor any longer." 

44 But it is I. Don't you recognise me ? " 

44 Pass away there. Pass away." 

So Peter passed away, hearing the garrison 
cheer for Catherine as he passed ; but he could 
not return to Peterhof, for Catherine was al- 
ready there, sitting down to supper in the 
pleasure - house from which Alexis Orlof had 
fetched her to take possession of the throne, just 
twenty hours before. 44 I told you so," he re- 
peated. 44 1 foresaw this plot from the very first 
day of my reign" ; and then, while the frivolous 
ladies of the party pleasantly sang, Qu'allions- 
nousfaire dans cettegalere? he summoned Munnich 
to his cabin, and asked him for advice. The 
marshal replied that, though Cronstadt was 
lost, Revel was still loyal. 

107 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



" Row to Revel without losing an instant. 
Pick up a ship-of-war there, and sail to Prussia. 
You have an army there. You can return to 
Russia at the head of eighty thousand men, 
and in six weeks you will have won your 
Empire back again." 

So the marshal urged ; but the women and 
the courtiers protested. Revel, they said, was 
too far — the oarsmen were too tired. Besides, 
very likely the reports of the revolt were ex- 
aggerated. It was incredible that the whole 
Empire had risen in revolt; and it was un- 
dignified for an Emperor to quit the country like 
a fugitive. The Empress, no doubt, had her 
party, but she only wanted to make terms. 
Et cetera ; and it was to the voice of the women 
and the courtiers that Peter listened. Very 
well, he said. Since it was impossible to return 
to Peterhof, he would land at Oranienbaum. 
He landed there, in the early morning, and 
learnt that Catherine and her army were still 
advancing. 

His first impulse was to mount his horse, 
and ride hard for Poland ; but this time 
Elizabeth Vorontsof dissuaded him. She was 
ambitious, and had no fancy to be the consort 
of a dispossessed sovereign in exile ; and she 
had a happy thought. Just as Revel had 
remained after Cronstadt was lost, so now, 
though Russia was lost, the Grand Duchy of 
Holstein remained. If Peter would resign the 
Empire, Catherine might be willing to leave him 
108 



DEPOSITION OF PETER 



the Grand Duchy, and she herself could contrive 
to be happy as a Grand Duchess. The experiment 
was worth trying, and she persuaded Peter to try 
it. He shut himself up and wrote to Catherine. 
He came out and gave the order to dismantle 
the Oranienbaum fortifications. And then there 
followed a final and fearful interview with 
heroic old Marshal Munnich, who stamped his 
foot and foamed at the mouth with rage — 

" What ! You're not going to put your- 
self at the head of your troops, and die like an 
Emperor ! If you're afraid of being hurt, hang 
on to a crucifix. Nobody will dare to touch you 
then, and I'll do the fighting for you myself." 

So the angry veteran thundered ; but there 
was to be no fighting except by a few loyal 
peasants armed with scythes, whom Gregory 
Orlof scornfully scattered with the flat of his 
sword. Peter absolutely refused to fight, but 
sent his letter instead, and received in reply 
an invitation to sign the following Act of 
Abdication : — 

" During the brief period of my absolute 
reign over the Russian Empire, I have dis- 
covered that I am not on a level with my task, 
but am incapable of governing that Empire 
either as a sovereign ruler or in any fashion 
whatsoever. I have also observed its decline, 
and the imminent peril of its complete collapse, 
which would have covered me with eternal 

109 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



disgrace. After mature deliberation, there- 
fore, acting under no compulsion, I solemnly 
declare, before Russia, and before the Universe, 
that I resign the government of the said Empire 
for ever ; that I have no desire to rule over it, 
whether as absolute ruler or under any other 
form of constitution ; and that I will never seek 
to do so by means of any support that I may 
be able to obtain. In faith whereof I make 
oath, before God and the Universe, having 
written and signed this Act of Abdication with 
my own hand." ; f I 7 & ' 

Peter copied out the humiliating document, 
and subscribed his name to it. That is the 
action which his critics have in mind when they 
say that he abdicated after the manner of a 
naughty child, overawed, confessing its fault, 
and submitting to be slapped and sent to bed. 
The officer to whom he handed the Act of 
Abdication said that his orders were to arrest 
him and take him to Peterhof ; and Peter 
acquiesced in that proposal also. The Order 
which he wore was removed from his breast. 
He was placed in a carriage, together with his 
mistress and his aide-de-camp, and driven off. 
The soldiers on the road raised cheers for 
Catherine as he passed. 

It was not Catherine who received him — 
her attitude was like that of the litigant who 
stands aside on the ground that the matter in 
dispute has passed out of his hands into those 
110 



DEPOSITION OF PETER 

of his solicitor. This matter was in the hands 
of the soldiers ; and their hands were rough. 
They sent off Peter's aide-de-camp in one 
direction and his mistress in another ; they 
turned out Peter's pockets, scattering handfuls 
of diamonds on the ground. " Now undress," 
they said ; and Peter stood, on the grand stair- 
case of his own Palace, barefooted, clad only in 
his shirt, a miserable object of mockery, crying 
like a child. Then at last they threw a shabby 
cloak over him, and drove him off to Ropscha, 
where he was to be confined. According to 
one account, he asked that his mistress, his 
negro servant, and his monkey might accom- 
pany him. According to another account, he 
begged only for a bottle of Burgundy and a pipe. 
They gave him, at any rate, a Bible and a pack 
of cards ; and he proceeded to beguile the time 
by building toy fortresses. 

Catherine, meanwhile, returned to St. Peters- 
burg in triumph, to reward her friends and for- 
give her enemies. The promised stream of vodka 
flowed in the barrack yards and in the streets, 
at a cost of forty- one thousand roubles. Princess 
Dashkof was given twenty -five thousand roubles ; 
and her sister and the other members of her 
family were pardoned in consideration of her 
services, though Elizabeth Vorontsof was 
required to hand over her jewels. Orlof swag- 
gered about, boasting that he had made the 
Empress, and could unmake her, until either 
Panin or the Hetman of the Cossacks brought 

111 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



him to his senses with the remark that, if he 
presumed too far, there were those who would 
hang him on a gallows as high as Haman's 
within a week. Even Marshal Munnich, thor- 
oughly sick of Peter at last, transferred his 
allegiance, and was well received. "So you 
were going to fight against me ? " Catherine 
asked him. " Yes, madam ; but henceforward 
I hope to fight in your defence," was his diplo- 
matic answer. 

Still, all was not yet over. The Holstein 
soldiers had, indeed, been disarmed, and locked 
up in cattle-sheds and lumber-rooms until it 
should be convenient to send them home ; 
but there were other sources from which trouble 
seemed likely to arise. There were good 
Russians, taken by surprise, who now remem- 
bered that Catherine was a German, whereas 
the husband whom she had dethroned was 
of the family of Peter the Great. Even at 
St. Petersburg some of these jeered at the 
Guards, asking them, " Who sold his Emperor 
for two roubles ? " and the Guard showed 
signs of shame ; while, at Moscow, soldiers 
and populace alike refused to cheer Catherine 
even when the Governor called upon them to 
do so, or, at all events, only cheered her under 
compulsion. It could not be said that all 
was over except the shouting when the shout- 
ing itself lacked spontaneity. There would 
still be a party for Peter as long as Peter lived ; 

and therefore 

112 



DEATH OF PETER 



The inference was obvious — Peter would 
have to die. While Peter sat in his prison 
at Ropscha, clamouring in vain for his monkey, 
his mistress, and his negro, swilling his Bur- 
gundy, smoking his pipe, reading his Bible, and 
building toy fortresses with his pack of cards, 
that inference was being drawn in the Palace 
at St. Petersburg. It took six days to draw 
it. A message from Peter to the effect that, 
" disgusted at the wickedness of mankind, he 
was resolved henceforward to devote himself to 
a philosophical life," made no difference to the 
drawing of it. Who drew it ? 

That is another of the unsolved mysteries 
of history which no one will ever solve. No 
one ever confessed ; and the secrets of Russian 
prisons are well guarded. The only absolutely 
incredible version of the story is the official 
version — that Peter died suddenly of " hemor- 
rhoidal colic." No one has ever believed that 
statement, and some sardonic comments on 
it have been preserved. D'Alembert was 
presently to decline Catherine's invitation to 
visit Russia on the ground, as he told a friend, 
that " fatal colics are too frequent in that 
country " ; and we have also Princess Dashkof's 
account of her first interview with the Empress 
after her reception of the news — 

" I could not bring myself to enter the 
Palace until the following day. I then found 
the Empress with a dejected air, visibly labour- 
h 113 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



ing under much uneasiness of mind. These 
were her words when she addressed me : ' My 
horror at this death is inexpressible ; it is a 
blow which strikes me to the earth.' ' It is a 
death too sudden, madam,' replied I, 6 for 
your glory and for mine.' " 

But Princess Dashkof acquits Catherine of 
all knowledge of the crime, and Frederick 
the Great took the same view in a conversation 
with M. de Segur. Neither of them knew the 
facts, of course ; but the Princess knew 
Catherine, and it seems safer to base conjecture 
on Catherine's character than to assume the 
worst and infer Catherine's character there- 
from. Unless she was cruel and vindictive on 
this one occasion, she was very far from being 
a cruel and vindictive woman ; nor was she, 
so far as one can judge, a woman to be impelled 
to crime by fear. But she was a woman in 
the hands of men ; a German in the hands of 
Russians ; a stranger in a land which had 
not outgrown the traditions of savagery — a 
land in which one Emperor had fried his 
enemies in frying - pans and another had 
knouted his own son to death, and both were 
styled " the Great." 

If she had dropped a hint, or uttered a 
nervously impatient word — if she had said 
anything even remotely resembling Henry n.'s 
" Who will rid me of this turbulent priest ? " — 
then those about her would have been fairly 
114 



DEATH OF PETER 



sure to act on it before she had time to unsay 
it ; while others — her friend Panin, for instance, 
the fat, plausible, oleaginous intriguer, — the 
Count Fosco, as it were, of the conspiracy, — 
would have been ready to rub their soapy, self- 
complacent hands, and propose to make, the 
best of a bad job, which might turn out to be 
a blessing in disguise. But it is not even 
necessary to suppose the hint to have been 
given. Catherine, in the view of a good many 
of the conspirators, was still a figure-head rather 
than a leader ; and they were quite capable 
of acting without consulting her, on the ground 
that she who willed the end must also will 
the means. 

It was Alexis Orlof who acted — not, one 
may be sure, on his own sole responsibility, 
but on whose orders, or at whose suggestion, 
it is quite impossible to say. The time came 
when he shuddered at the recollection of the 
deed, and protested that he had only done it 
under constraint — an unwilling instrument, 
cruelly assigned a shameful and painful part. 
But that was long afterwards, when manners 
were milder and more polished, and probably 
also on a day on which he had drunk too freely. 
There is no indication of qualms or reluctance 
in the contemporary records of the deed ; and 
though there are certain minor discrepancies in 
those records, there is complete unanimity as to 
the essential facts. 

Peter, as has been said, was in prison at 

115 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



Ropscha — " a pleasant place," as Catherine wrote 
to Poniatowski, which he was only intended 
to occupy provisionally, while still more pleasant 
quarters were being prepared for him at Schliissel- 
burg. He sat in his cell, with his pipe and his 
bowl and his playing cards, some French novels 
and a German Bible, when the door opened, and 
Alexis Orlof entered, attended by one Tieplof, 
who was attached to Catherine in some secretarial 
capacity. Alexis, it is to be noted, was the 
strongest of the Orlofs, who were all men of ex- 
ceptional physical strength — a veritable Sandow 
or Hackenschmidt among men. 

They entered cheerily, professing to bring 
good news. It was all right, they said, and 
there was nothing to be afraid of. The order for 
the prisoner's release would soon be made out — 
they had come to tell him so. Meanwhile, they 
begged permission to dine with him ; and while 
dinner was preparing, they proposed a glass of 
vodka — the customary Russian appetiser. They 
had brought the vodka with them, and they 
poured it out ; and Peter, suspecting nothing, 
tossed it off. He had no sooner swallowed it than 
pains seized him. No matter, said his visitors ; 
it was nothing — the pains would quickly pass. 
Another drop of vodka — they filled a second 
glass, and put it to his lips. 

But Peter now knew that he had been 
poisoned, and refused the second draught — 
and not only refused it, but shrieked aloud for 
help. His piercing screams rang down the prison 
116 



DEATH OF PETER 

corridors. His body servant, hearing them, 
ran in ; but the colossal Alexis flung him out 
again. Then came two officials. One of them 
was Prince Bariatinski, just appointed Governor 
of the prison ; it is uncertain whether the other 
was Bariatinski 's brother or a certain young 
Potemkin, aged seventeen, of whom we shall hear 
again. It is also uncertain whether they merely 
looked on, or rendered active help ; but that 
does not matter — they were not, in any case, 
on Peter's side. And Peter was down — on his* 
back — with Alexis, the giant, kneeling on his 
chest ; and a rope — or it may have been a strap 
or a napkin — was twisted round Peter's neck, 
and drawn tighter and tighter till he choked. 

It was over ; and Alexis mounted his horse 
and galloped to Catherine with the news, — or as 
much of it as he thought it well to communicate, 
— and we may believe the witnesses who tell us 
that she showed surprise and horror. She sent 
for Panin ; and none can say whether she told 
him more than he knew or whether he already 
knew more than she could tell him. Panin was 
not the man to boast of his zeal in such a case, 
or make admissions which, in some future 
circumstances, might be used against him. He 
was the man, rather, to wash his fat hands in 
imperceptible soap and water, saying that, of 
course, it was very unfortunate, but that what 
was done could not be undone, and that the 
important thing, at the moment, was to consider 
when, and in what form, the public announce- 

117 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



ment of the catastrophe should be made. He 
advised that the secret should be kept for 
four- and- twenty hours, and that an edict should 
then be issued. The edict ran as follows : — 

" By the grace of God, Catherine n., Empress 
and Autocrat of All the Russias, to all our 
loving subjects, etc., greeting : — 

" The seventh day of our accession to the 
throne of All the Russias, we received infor- 
mation that the late Emperor, Peter nr., by the 
means of a bloody accident ... to which he 
had been formerly subject, was attacked with a 
most violent griping colic. That therefore we 
might not be wanting in Christian duty, nor 
disobedient to the Divine command, by which 
we are enjoined to preserve the life of our 
neighbour, we immediately ordered that the 
said Peter should be furnished with everything 
that might be judged necessary to prevent the 
dangerous consequences of that accident, and to 
restore his health by the aid of medicine. But, 
to our great regret and affliction, we were 
yesterday evening apprised that, by the will of 
the Almighty, the Emperor departed this life. 
We have therefore ordered his body to be 
conveyed to the monastery of Nevski, for inter- 
ment in that place. At the same time, with our 
imperial and maternal voice, we exhort our 
faithful subjects to forgive and forget what is 
past, to pay the last duties to his body, and to 
pray to God sincerely for the repose of his soul ; 
118 



DEATH OF PETER 



willing them, however, to consider this un- 
expected and sudden death as an especial act 
of the Providence of God, whose impenetrable 
decrees are working for us, for our throne, and 
for our country." 

The document, of course, is the composition 
not of Catherine, but of her plausible councillor 
Panin — it is quite possible that Catherine herself 
got no further than suspecting the true cause of 
Peter's death. No doubt, too, it was at Panin's 
suggestion that Peter's body was exposed to 
public view in the church of the monastery of 
Alexander Nevski, in spite of the marks of 
violence, which could not be concealed. For 
Panin knew his Russia, and knew, therefore, 
that the only way to prevent some false Peter 
from cropping up, like the false Demetrius, and 
making trouble in the provinces, was to give 
the whole world ocular evidence that Peter was 
really dead. By that means the most dangerous 
of possible Pretenders was eliminated — for many 
years to come, at all events. The only possible 
rival still remaining, as far as anyone could see, 
was Ivan ; and the mention of his name brings 
us to the story of yet another prison tragedy. 



119 



CHAPTER XI 



The Story of Ivan vi. — His Assassination in Prison. 

The story of Ivan is among the most shameful 
and painful in Russian annals : one of those 
stories of man's inhumanity to man, and of 
terror begetting cruelty, which almost compel 
despair of human nature. 

Ivan was guilty of nothing — there was no 
pretence that he was guilty of anything, and no 
charge against him, whether true or false. He 
had no ambition, and no chance of harbouring 
any. Whatever was done, or planned, in his 
name was done or planned without his know- 
ledge ; and even that amounted to very little. 
He appears in history only as the possible figure- 
head of possible conspiracies. He had been 
called to the throne as a baby, and swept off it 
again as a baby in a Revolution directed, not 
against him, but against the Regent who ruled 
in his name — the Revolution which resulted in 
the accession of Elizabeth. But he was the 
great-grandson of the half-brother of Peter the 
Great ; and claims might, therefore, have been 
preferred on his behalf. Consequently, he stood 
120 



IVAN VI. 



in the way of the actual rulers — or, at least, 
might stand there ; consequently, they were 
afraid of him ; consequently, his life was one 
long persecution, beginning, not in boyhood, but 
in babyhood. 

At the time of Elizabeth's Palace Revolution, 
he was little more than a year old ; and he was 
only four, or possibly five, when he was separated 
from his parents. They were sent, as we have 
seen, to the shores of the White Sea, where they 
died — his mother in 1746, his father not until 
thirty years later. He was, at first, left at 
Oranienburg, but afterwards taken to Schliissel- 
burg, "and there lodged in a casemate of the 
fortress, the very loophole of which was imme- 
diately bricked up " — 

" He was never brought out into the open 
air, and no ray of heaven ever visited his eyes. 
In this subterranean vault it was necessary to 
keep a lamp always burning ; and as no clock 
was either to be seen or heard, Ivan knew no 
difference between day and night. His interior 
guard, a captain and a lieutenant, were shut up 
with him ; and there was a time when they did 
not dare to speak to him, not so much as to 
answer him the simplest question." 

So Tooke writes, rendering the common 
report ; and we may trust the general impression 
of the picture, even if we hesitate to insist on the 
details. Ivan, at any rate, had no mother, no 

121 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



nurse, no governess, no tutor, no companions of 
his own age — no one to speak to except gaolers, 
who, as we have just read, were not allowed to 
speak to him. It may or may not be true, as 
has been said, that he was deliberately dosed 
with drugs till be became imbecile. The whole 
method of his upbringing made for imbecility, 
and would account for it. He can hardly be 
said, indeed, to have been brought up, or even 
to have been dragged up — he was just kept in 
captivity and allowed to live. 

Physically, according to all reports, he was 
fairly well developed. There is a description 
of him as " full six feet high, with a fine blond 
head of hair, a red beard, regular features " ; 
but mentally he was little more than the beasts 
of the field. It is doubtful whether he was even 
taught to read. Of people other than gaolers, 
of city streets, and of blue skies and green grass, 
he had only a remote and faded recollection. 
When he was shifted, as he often was, from place 
to place, he was conveyed in a covered cart, 
so that he could neither see nor be seen. 

He was once brought, in that way, to Eliza- 
beth at St. Petersburg. Presumably she had 
some thought, as was whispered, of substituting 
him for Peter as her heir ; but, if she did enter- 
tain that idea, she quickly changed her mind 
again ; perhaps because pressure was brought to 
bear — perhaps because Ivan's obvious imbecility 
compelled her. All that one actually knows of 
the interview is that, when it was over, Eliza- 
122 



IVAN VI. 



beth was found in tears. She was a tender- 
hearted woman — time sensible — and she probably 
had not realised before the full extent of the 
cruelty inflicted in her name. The discovery 
quite upset her for half an hour or so — but that 
was all. She pulled herself together, and went 
back to her card-parties, and masked balls, and 
brandied cherries ; while Ivan was driven back, 
still in his covered cart, to his place of detention. 

He remained there another six years before 
there was another incident in his life ; but 
then Peter in. visited him — he also having it 
in his mind to make the prisoner his heir. It 
must have been an amazing interview — Peter 
the Impossible asking Ivan the Imbecile how his 
gaolers treated him, and saying that he was 
very sorry to learn that they did not treat 
him well ; but the reports of the dialogue which 
have come down to us cannot be accepted as 
authentic. The trail of the romancer is over 
them ; and all that is well established is that 
Peter promised that Ivan should be better 
treated in future, and gave orders to that effect. 
Whatever else he may have thought of doing, he 
had not done it when the revolution overtook 
him. Ivan was still in prison when Catherine 
succeeded to the throne ; and the French 
Charge d' Affaires commented sardonically — 

" What a picture it is when one looks at it 
in cold blood ! The grandson of Peter the 
Great dethroned and murdered; the grandson 

123 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



of the Emperor Ivan languishing in fetters ; 
while a Princess of Anlialt usurps the crown of 
their ancestors, paving the way to the throne by 
an act of regicide." 

The picture is not quite exact ; but its 
inaccuracies are not important. Drawn by an 
impartial observer, it shows us what a good 
many people thought, and a few of them ven- 
tured to say. Ivan was not in chains ; and 
Catherine, personally, wished him no harm. 
She adopted, and even extended, Peter's policy 
of making Ivan more comfortable. She even 
spoke of transferring him from a prison to a 
monastery if the change would give him any 
satisfaction, and if it could be effected without 
any danger of the monastery becoming a shrine 
of sedition and a pivot of disloyalty. But it 
did not occur to her to release him. It was 
a matter of course that Ivan should always be 
in prison — chiefly because he had always been 
there. Ivan himself probably had grown to 
expect a prison, more or less as a dog learns to 
expect a kennel. 

He continued, therefore, to be kept in cap- 
tivity ; and, even in captivity, he continued 
to be the innocent centre of disaffection for 
a further period of two years. Catherine had 
not yet felt her feet in her new position, and 
was nervous. " The Empress's fear of losing 
what she has gained," reported M. de Breteuil, 
" is so obvious in her demeanour that any person 
124 



MURDER OF IVAN 



of any account in the country feels himself a 
strong man in her presence." She mastered her 
fears sufficiently to show herself abroad, even 
at night, with only a small escort ; but the 
nervousness remained, and there probably was 
enough actual danger to warrant it. Both in 
St. Petersburg and at Moscow there were riots. 
Princess Dashkof was suspected of knowing 
more about them than she chose to tell ; and 
she was ordered to leave Moscow for Riga. 
Ivan's name was constantly in the mouths of 
the seditious ; and Ivan had to pay the penalty 
of a fault which was not his. 

One knows what happened ; but how it 
came to happen one can only guess. Whatever 
was done was almost certainly done without 
Catherine's orders, and without her knowledge, 
by the men in whose hands she had placed 
herself ; but even they did not appear. Perhaps 
Alexis Orlof felt that one murder, committed 
with his own hands, sufficed for him. Perhaps 
he and his brothers, and Panin, and the rest of 
them, not feeling quite confident of the outcome 
of the enterprise, preferred to act through agents 
who could be repudiated. Perhaps, on the other 
hand, they were only responsible for the order 
that, whatever happened, Ivan must on no 
account be allowed to leave his prison alive. 
Ostensibly, at all events, there was a plot for 
Ivan's deliverance ; and one can do no more 
than tell the story of its failure. 

The Schlusselburg prison was guarded by 

125 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



a company of the Smolensk regiment ; and one 
of the sub -lieutenants of that company was a 
certain Mirovitch — the grandson of an officer 
implicated in Mazeppa's rebellion. He and a 
certain Pishkof, whom he took into his con- 
fidence, tampered with the men under his 
command, and persuaded them to join him in 
an attempt to rescue Ivan from Schliisselburg 
and take him to the barracks of the Guards, 
who were ready, he said, to proclaim him 
Emperor, just as, two years before, they had 
proclaimed Catherine Empress. It is possible 
that he was a fanatical partisan, who meant 
and believed what he said. It is possible that 
he expected to be rewarded for his coup by the 
restitution of his family's confiscated estates. 
It is also possible that he was detailed to his task 
as an agent provocateur — commissioned to create 
the circumstances in which the order for Ivan's 
instant execution would have to be carried 
out by his custodians. That mystery is quite 
insoluble, and one can only relate what hap- 
pened. 

It was between one and two o'clock in the 
morning when Mirovitch mustered his men, and 
led them, first to the arsenal, for munitions, 
and then to Ivan's cell. The noise disturbed 
the Governor, who came out to see what was 
happening; but Mirovitch hit him on the head 
with the butt-end of his musket, and then bound 
him hand and foot. The heavy dungeon door 
was locked against him ; but he fetched cannon 
126 



MURDER OF IVAN 



from the ramparts, and threatened to blow 
it down. It was not a door that could with- 
stand artillery ; so the two officers who slept 
with Ivan in his cell perceived that they would 
soon be overpowered, and that they must either 
lose their prisoner or kill him. So they drew 
their swords. 

Ivan the Imbecile, roused from his slumbers 
by the uproar, understood nothing of what 
was happening. He knew neither why he was 
to be taken from his prison, nor why he was to 
be put to death. He only knew that, though 
life had never been worth living, he did not 
want to die. It was his instinct to fight ; 
and he fought with the desperate fury of a 
beast at bay. He was unarmed, but he had 
the strength of a giant. He hit out ; he 
grappled; he wrested the sword out of one 
of his assailants' hands and broke it. But he 
had enemies behind him as well as in front. 
He was tripped, and thrown, and bayoneted 
where he lay, receiving no fewer than eight 
bayonet wounds before he died ; and then his 
murderer opened the door, and pointed to his 
body, saying to Mirovitch — 

66 There is your Emperor. Now you can do 
what you like with him." 

That is the end of Ivan's pitiful story. His 
body, like Peter's, was exposed to public 
view, in order that the public might harbour 
no doubts of his death. It was the second 
appearance of blood on the steps of Catherine's 

127 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



throne. Those who wished to see her slip in 
it made no secret of their belief that she had 
shed it — or at least contrived that it should be 
shed. They did not abandon the belief be- 
cause Mirovitch was arrested, brought to trial, 
convicted, and executed. On the contrary, 
they declared that some other criminal had 
been compelled to personate Mirovitch on the 
scaffold, and that he himself had been spirited 
away and rewarded on condition that he never 
showed his face again. 

It is possible — for everything is possible in 
Russia. The stories of Russian prisons nearly 
always end in such clouds of impenetrable doubt. 
The demeanour of Mirovitch in the dock was 
admittedly not that of a man who feared his 
fate ; but his fearlessness may just as well have 
been that of the fanatic as that of the man 
assured of his escape ; and the presumptions 
against Catherine, in any case, are of the 
slenderest. She had enemies enough to bring 
the proofs home to her if there had been any 
proofs to bring ; and she was, in fact, at this 
time, hardly a free agent, but still in the hands 
of the men who had given her her throne, 
and could not see her lose it without risk to 
themselves. 

The accident, however (supposing it to have 
been an accident), was a lucky one. The 
security, if not the glory, of Catherine's reign 
dates from it. We have now to see how she 
became an autocrat in fact as well as in name. 
128 



CHAPTER XII 



Catherine signals to Europe — Her Overtures to French Philo- 
sophers — Gregory Orlof's Invitation to Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau 

The clouds of the revolution rolling away, 
Catherine at last emerges, definite and distinct, 
individual and recognisable. Poniatowski, in- 
deed, has already revealed her charm, and the 
Chevalier d'Eon has shown us the fire in her 
eye; but still one has only partly known her — 
has known what she did better than why she 
did it; has had a difficulty in visualising her, 
and a still greater difficulty in reading her mind ; 
has had to take her, to a large extent, on trust, 
inferring what she must then have been from 
our knowledge of what she afterwards became. 
With her accession our real knowledge begins, 
and she stands out as a real woman — not the 
less real because always complex and some- 
times inconsistent. She stands at the window 
which Peter the Great built on the Neva that he 
might look out on Europe; and one can salute 
her as — almost — a European. 

Peter the Great had climbed out of that 
window, and climbed back again ; but it can 
i 129 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



hardly be said that he was a better European 
on his return than on his departure. John 
Evelyn, in whose house he lived at Deptford, 
complained of his Oriental habits, much as 
later Occidentals complained of the Oriental 
habits of the first Shah of Persia who visited 
London and Paris. He married a loose woman 
of low birth, and knouted his son to death. It 
is impossible to think of him except as a bar- 
barian — a barbarian of genius, no doubt, but a 
barbarian nevertheless ; and that, in fact, is 
how his contemporaries thought of him. Occi- 
dental potentates might, for comity's sake, 
call him their " dear cousin " ; but they really 
regarded him as outside the pale, and classed 
him with Great Chams and Big Bashaws. 
Catherine was the first Autocrat of All the 
Russias whom they could, without too great 
effort, accept as one of themselves. 

She was a good enough Russian in a sense 
— a much better Russian, in a sense, than 
Peter in. She worshipped reverentially in Ortho- 
dox churches, whereas Peter had often enlivened 
the hours of divine service by making faces 
at the officiating clergy. She was patriotic, 
too, governing the country through Russian 
and not through foreign Ministers, and re- 
joicing in the title of Mother of the People. The 
contrast between her policy and Peter's in that 
respect was one of the secrets of her strength 
and popularity ; and another may have been her 
preference for her own subjects in her numerous 
130 



SIGNALS TO EUROPE 



affairs of the heart. But she was a Westerner 
by birth. The cast of her mind was Occidental, 
and so was her culture. She had been brought 
up — or rather she had brought herself up — on 
Bayle, and Montesquieu, and the Encyclo- 
paedists ; and when she took her stand at the 
window which Peter the Great had built, she 
looked out of it in a different direction from him, 
and in quest of quite other sights. 

Peter the Great had looked chiefly towards 
England and Holland, interesting himself mainly 
in the mechanical appliances of progress — the 
crafts especially of the shipwright and the 
builder. Catherine looked out towards France, 
letting it be known that she was interested in 
fine arts and new ideas. She was also interested 
in other things, of course — notably in those 
affairs of the heart about which it will be 
necessary to say a good deal more before her 
portrait is complete. On that side of life she 
was to prove herself somewhat of a Super- 
woman ; but it was not through such excesses 
that she first challenged attention. No one 
would have troubled to denounce her as the 
Messalina of the North if she had not first asserted 
herself as its Semiramis. 

In the reign of Ivan the Terrible, Europe had 
discovered Russia. In the reign of Peter the 
Great, Russia had discovered Europe. Now, in 
the reign of Catherine, and through Catherine, 
Russia discovered France — and not France 
merely, but the Liberal France of the Encyclo- 

131 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



psedists. How far she had understood the 
Encyclopaedists may be questioned — she was 
self-educated, and may therefore often have 
admired without comprehending. But at least 
she had read their books, and recognised that 
they had a message for her ; and she now looked 
to them for further illumination, and sought 
to get into closer touch with them. She knew 
them by name ; she could distinguish them one 
from another ; and the first notable act of her 
reign was to flash signals to them from the 
westward window at which she stood — separate 
signals to Voltaire, to Rousseau, to Diderot, 
and to d'Alembert. 

Diderot was the only one of the four whom 
she was ever to meet in the flesh. She got him 
to St. Petersburg at last ; and it is said that 
he used gleefully to slap her thigh (in mistake 
for his own) when telling her his good stories. 
Ten years were to pass, however, before they 
thus came into physical contact ; and, in the 
meantime, Catherine made many signals, offered 
many courtesies, and conferred certain benefits. 
Hearing that his Encyclopedia had been sup- 
pressed in Paris, she proposed that its publica- 
tion should be continued in her own capital. 
Hearing that he wished to sell his books, in 
order to provide a dowry for his daughter, 
she bought them from him, begged him to take 
care of them for her as long as he lived, made 
him her librarian, and paid him fifty years' 
salary in advance — a beau geste which could 
132 



SIGNALS TO EUROPE 



not fail to arouse enthusiasm in French in- 
tellectual circles. 

At about the same time she invited d'Alem- 
bert to settle in St. Petersburg as the tutor of 
the Grand Duke Paul. The choice, in view 
of the remoteness of Russia from the rest of 
Europe, showed much the same degree of per- 
spicacity which we should praise in the Shah 
of Persia if we heard that he had extended 
a similar invitation to Sir Oliver Lodge ; 
and the terms offered were of truly im- 
perial magnificence — twenty thousand roubles 
a year, a palace, and the rank of an am- 
bassador. But d'Alembert was not to be 
tempted. He was not, like Diderot, the sort 
of man to sit in the boudoir of an Empress, 
and convulse her with good stories — he pre- 
ferred the simple life in a Paris flat, with Mile 
de Lespinasse ; so he made excuses. " So 
many people are carried off suddenly by colic 
in that country," he said, with a shrug of 
the shoulders, to his friends ; while to Catherine 
herself he protested that though, no doubt, 
he was competent to teach the Grand Duke a 
little mathematics, still the heir to the throne 
of the great Russian nation would need to be 
trained in such multifarious accomplishments 
that, really, the responsibility of undertaking 
his education, etc. etc. . . . It was a polite way 
of classing Catherine, in spite of her signals, 
with Great Chams and Big Bashaws ; and 
Catherine perceived that she had been snubbed, 

133 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



and was annoyed, albeit without, for that reason, 
ceasing to signal to the intellectual potentates 
of the West. 

Her signal to Voltaire was chiefly important 
as a tribute to his pre-eminence as a maker of 
public opinion — the fact slips out in a letter 
in which she naively tells him that " such ac- 
quaintances are very useful." It suited Cather- 
ine, in short, to keep on the blind side of 
Voltaire, for much the same reasons for which 
it suits a modern Tsar to keep on the blind side 
of Mr. W. T. Stead. He blew her trumpet, 
and presented her point of view ; she sent him 
paragraphs, and he published them. " France 
persecutes philosophers, but the Scythians sup- 
port them," he wrote ; and he went into de- 
tails when, and as, required — putting Catherine 
right with the French public in the matter of 
the revolution, praising her for being inocu- 
lated with smallpox as a brave example to 
her subjects, and writing a pamphlet for her 
in support of the Russian case against the Turks. 
In return she bought some of the watches 
manufactured by the philosopher's dependents 
at Ferney. He sent her six times as many 
watches as she had ordered — about £1600 worth 
in all ; and she paid the bill, albeit with the 
remark that she now had watches enough to 
last her for a long time. 

If Catherine could be surfeited with watches, 
however, she could not be surfeited with flattery ; 
and Voltaire flattered her to the top of her 
134 



SIGNALS TO EUROPE 



bent. He praised her hands (which he had 
never seen) as the most beautiful in the world, 
and declared that her feet (of which he knew 
as little) were " whiter than the Russian snows." 
He also wrote that all philosophers everywhere 
regarded themselves as her subjects ; and he 
exclaimed in Latin, and in the language of 
adoration : Te Catherinam laudamus ; te do- 
minant confitemur. That was what she liked ; 
and she was not to know that he wrote about 
her to his intimates in a somewhat different 
tone, saying to Mme du Deffand, for instance — 

" I am perfectly aware that people reproach 
her with certain little matters in regard to her 
treatment of her husband ; but these are 
family affairs in which I am not concerned. 
Besides, it is not a bad thing for her to have 
a fault to make amends for. That gives her 
a motive for spurring herself to great efforts in 
the pursuit of public admiration." 

And Catherine did so spur herself ; and, 
just as Voltaire refrained from mixing himself 
in her family quarrels, so she thought it un- 
necessary to take any part in his philosophical 
squabbles. The first exchange of civilities with 
Voltaire took place at the time of Voltaire's 
estrangement from Rousseau ; but that did 
not prevent Catherine from making overtures 
to him and to Rousseau simultaneously. 

Rousseau, at the date of her accession, and 

135 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



in the years immediately succeeding it, was 
being hunted from pillar to post on account of 
the sentiments set forth in Entile and Le contrat 
social. He had fled from France to Switzerland, 
and from Switzerland to England. Catherine 
had read his books — there were only three 
copies of them in the whole of the Russian 
Empire, but one of them was in her hands ; 
and the report of his wanderings had reached 
her. It was an opportunity to flash yet another 
signal to the intellectual West ; so she told 
Gregory Orlof to write to Rousseau and invite 
him to Russia. He obeyed ; and the letter 
which he sent is a delightful document. 

Gregory Orlof was no Western, but a true 
Scythian, not to say a true Sarmatian ; and 
he was also as ignorant as it is possible for a 
Guardsman and a sportsman to be. Probably 
he heard of Rousseau for the first time when 
he received his instructions to write to him ; 
certainly he knew nothing about Rousseau 
except what Catherine told him. But he sat 
down at his desk, and wrestled with his instruc- 
tion bravely ; and with this result — 

" Sir, — You will not be surprised at my 
writing to you, for you know that every man 
has his peculiarities. You have yours ; I have 
mine ; that is only natural, and the motive 
of this letter is equally so. I see that you 
have, for a long time, been moving about from 
one place to another. I know the reasons 
136 



INVITATION TO ROUSSEAU 

through public channels of information, and 
perhaps I know them wrongly, for wrong 
reasons are often given in such cases. I believe 
you are in England with the Duke of Richmond, 
and I dare say he is making you comfortable ; 
but nevertheless I thought I would tell you 
that I have an estate which is sixty versts (that 
is, ten German leagues) distant from St. Peters- 
burg, where the air is healthy, and the water 
good, and where the hill- sides environing a 
number of lakes lend themselves admirably to 
meditation. The inhabitants speak neither 
English nor French ; still less, Greek or Latin. 
The priest is incapable of arguing, or preaching, 
and his flock think that they have done their 
duty when they have made the sign of the cross. 
Well, sir, if you ever think that this place would 
suit you, you are welcome to live in it. We 
would provide you with the necessaries of life, 
and you would find plenty of shooting and fish- 
ing. You can have people to talk to if you 
like, but there will be no one to worry you, 
and you will be under no obligations to anyone. 
All publicity can be avoided if you wish it ; 
but, in that case, I think you had better travel 
by sea. Inquisitive people will importune you 
less if you take that route than if you come by 
land. 5 ' 

There is a military directness about that 
composition from which one infers that Orlof 
dashed it off without assistance. One pictures 

137 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



the writer showing the draft to Catherine, and 
Catherine finding it a little curt. The con- 
cluding paragraph is a shade more polished, 
and may be supposed to have been added, 
with fuller instructions and under closer super- 
vision. It runs thus — 

" I have ventured, sir, to address you thus, 
as a token of the gratitude which I feel for the 
instruction which I have derived from your 
works, though it was not for my learning that 
they were written; and I have the honour to 
remain, with all expressions of respect, 

" Your obedient humble servant . . ." 

Such was the queer communication which 
reached Jean-Jacques in Derbyshire, where he 
was roaming on the hills in his voluminous 
Armenian robes, to the respectful amazement 
of the rustics, who did not know what to make 
of him, but inclined to the belief that he was 
a king kept out of his rights. The text of his 
reply is graphically illustrative of the difference 
between the Sarmatian and the European 
civilisations — 

" You describe yourself, M. le Comte, as 
eccentric. It is, indeed, almost an eccentricity 
to exercise disinterested benevolence ; and it 
is quite an eccentricity to do so on behalf of 
one who is personally unknown to you, and 
who lives so far away. Your obliging offer, 
138 



INVITATION TO ROUSSEAU 

the tone in which you make it, and your descrip- 
tion of the habitation to which you invite 
me, would certainly attract me if I were less 
of an invalid, more active, and younger, and 
if you lived nearer to the sun. I should be 
afraid, however, that, when you met the man 
whom you honour with your invitation, you 
would be disappointed. You would expect 
a man of letters — a good talker, who would 
repay your hospitality with eloquent and 
witty conversation. You would encounter a 
very simple person : one whose taste and 
misfortunes incline him to solitude; whose only 
recreation is to botanise all day long ; and who 
finds, in the society of the flowers and plants, 
the peace, so dear to his heart, which human 
beings have refused to him. Consequently, 
sir, I shall not come and live in your house ; 
but I shall always remember your invitation 
to it with gratitude, and I shall often regret 
my inability to cultivate the friendship of its 
owner. 

" Accept, M. le Comte, my very sincere 
compliments and my very humble salutations." 

So the matter dropped ; and this particular 
signal was displayed in vain, just as the signal 
to d'Alembert had been. But the fact that 
Catherine made it, together with so many 
other similar signals, as soon as she had con- 
quered her place at Peter the Great's window, 
and before her position there was quite secure 

139 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



against disturbance, is a valuable indication 
of the kind of woman that she was : a woman, 
that is to say, of an energetic, not to say a 
restless, mind — intellectually a daughter of the 
West, though she had got most of her educa- 
tion in the East — resolved to be " in the move- 
ment," whatever the movement might be, and 
whether she understood it or not. 

Of course, however, the first glimpse which 
we thus get of her is only partial. To get the 
full portrait, it will be necessary to follow 
her when she leaves the window, and observe 
her conduct of the affairs of her Empire, and 
also of the affairs of her heart. 



140 



CHAPTER XIII 



Life at Catherine's Court — Bestuchef s Proposal that she 
should marry Gregory Orlof 

A sketch of Catherine's personal appearance 
at the time when she was signalling, in the 
manner described, to the French artists and 
philosophers, may be taken from Anecdotes 
of the Russian Empire in a Series of Letters, 
written a few years ago from St. Petersburg, 
by William Richardson, who was attached to 
Lord Cathcart's Embassy — 

" The Empress of Russia," Richardson writes, 
"is taller than the middle size, very comely, 
gracefully formed, but inclined to grow cor- 
pulent ; and of a fair complexion which, like 
every other female in this country, she endeav- 
ours to improve by the addition of rouge. She 
has a fine mouth and teeth; and blue eyes, 
expressive of scrutiny, something not so good 
as observation, and not so bad as suspicion. 
Her features are in general regular and pleasing. 
Indeed, with regard to her appearance alto- 
gether, it would be doing her injustice to say 
it was masculine, yet it would not be doing 

141 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



her justice to say it was entirely feminine. 
As Milton intended to say of Eve, that she 
was fairer than any of her daughters, so this 
great Sovereign is certainly fairer than any 
of her subjects whom I have seen. . . . Her 
demeanour to all around her seemed very smiling 
and courteous." 

From the same gossip we may take a picture 
of a typical day in the life of the Empress, 
given to him by "a very respectable old lady 
of the highest rank " — 

" Her Majesty, according to this authority, 
rises at five in the morning, and is engaged in 
business till near ten. She then breakfasts 
and goes to prayers : dines at two : withdraws 
to her own apartment soon after dinner : 
drinks tea at five : sees company, plays at cards, 
or attends public places — the play, opera, or 
masquerade — till supper : and goes to sleep 
at ten. By eleven everything about the Palace 
is as still as midnight. Whist is her favourite 
game at cards ; she usually plays for five 
imperials (ten guineas) the rubber ; and as 
she plays with great clearness and attention, 
she is often successful : she sometimes plays, 
too, at piquet and cribbage. Though she is 
occasionally present at musical entertainments, 
she is not said to be fond of music. In the 
morning, between prayers and dinner, she 
frequently takes an airing, according as the 
weather admits, in a coach or sledge. On 
142 



COURT LIFE 



these occasions, she has sometimes no guards, 
and very few attendants ; and does not choose 
to be known or saluted as Empress. It is in 
this manner that she visits any great works 
that may be going on in the city or in the 
neighbourhood. She is fond of having small 
parties of eight or ten persons with her at 
dinner ; and she frequently sups, goes to 
balls, or masquerades, in the houses of her 
nobility. When she retires to her palaces in 
the country, especially to Tsarskoseloe, she 
lives with her ladies on a footing of as easy 
intimacy as possible. Any one of them who 
rises on her entering or going out of a room 
is fined in a rouble : and all forfeits of this 
sort are given to the poor." 

One may add Richardson's representation 
of Catherine as the Mother of her People, 
superintending the proceedings of her Senate. 
The East and the West — the primitive and the 
sophisticated — come into clashing contrast in 
the picture — 

" All the deputies have gold medals, as 
badges of their office, fastened to their breasts ; 
and as they come here from the remotest parts 
of the Empire, the variety of their dresses and 
appearance is very whimsical and amusing. — 
I have several times heard the following 
anecdote of the two Samoyed deputies. I 
give it you as nearly as possible in the very 

148 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 

words in which I have heard it. The Empress 
asked them to suggest such laws as they appre- 
hended would promote the welfare of their 
nation. One of them replied that they had 
very few laws, and did not desire any more. 
4 How ! ' said the Empress. ' Have you no 
crimes ? Are there no persons among you 
guilty of theft, murder, or adultery ? If you 
have crimes, you must have punishment ; and 
punishment supposes law.' ' We have such 
crimes,' answered the deputy, 6 and they are 
duly punished. If one man puts another to 
death unjustly, he also must suffer death.' 
Here he stopped ; he thought he had said 
enough. ' But what,' resumed Her Majesty, 
6 are the punishments of theft and adultery ? ' 
' How ! ' said the Samoyed, with a good deal 
of surprise. ' Is not detection sufficient punish- 
ment ? "' 

That is how things appeared to one who 
was not privileged to see them at very close 
quarters. If the Semiramis of the North figures 
in it, the Messalina of the North does not ; 
and there is even a suggestion in it of B Granger's 
King of Yvetot — se levant tard se couchant 
tot ; and we know, from other sources, that 
when .Catherine rose at this early hour, she 
lighted her own fire, so as not to give trouble. 
But of course there was a good deal to be 
seen that was not visible to Richardson's eyes. 
If Messalina, in all her glory, was not yet con- 
144 



ORLOF AND PONIATOWSKI 



spicuous, these, at any rate, were the years 
in which " favouritism " was being established 
on a firm basis as a regular Russian institution. 
The Ambassadors observed that, if Richardson 
did not. It was one of the things which they 
were sent to St. Petersburg to observe ; and 
their dispatches, from this time forward, are 
full of reports concerning Catherine's prefer- 
ences for this, that, and the other courtier. 
Naturally, seeing that the preferences often 
had, and always might have, a very practical 
bearing on international politics. In par- 
ticular, the Ambassadors kept a close eye on 
Gregory Orlof, and speculated as to whether 
he would or would not definitely "cut out^' 
Poniatowski. 

He did so, but not instantly, and not with- 
out a struggle. Poniatowski was a very 
devout lover ; and Catherine's attachment to 
him, in the face of political opposition, made 
her, for a season, a heroine of romance in the 
eyes of the Russian Court. Evidently she 
was faithful to him up to a point — and very 
likely she continued to speak of him as the 
only man she had ever really loved long after 
Gregory Orlof had come on the scene and 
tempted her to " consolatory adventures." 
She certainly continued in sentimental corre- 
spondence with him long after she had given 
him a rival, and ridiculed Gregory Orlof's 
pretensions long after she had accepted his 
addresses. Poniatowski, therefore, had grounds 
K 145 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



for hope, even after Catherine's accession, and 
some reason to expect that he would be sum- 
moned to her side. 

But Catherine had to choose ; and her 
choice was not quite free. We have seen 
Gregory Orlof's boast that he and his brothers, 
holding the Guard in the hollow of their hands, 
could depose her, if they wished, as easily as 
they had deposed her husband. To have 
favoured Poniatowski would have been the 
one certain way of tempting him to try his 
strength ; and we cannot even be sure that 
Catherine needed that argument to decide her. 
The battle for her regard was between a senti- 
mental man and a strong man ; and the strong 
man had risked his life to forward her am- 
bitions. Though she knew his limitations, he 
must have dazzled and delighted her. One 
imagines him fascinating her, much as a hand- 
some chorus-girl sometimes fascinates a man 
of education and refinement. At any rate, 
though she cherished a tenderness for Ponia- 
towski, and promised to do her best to bring 
about his election as King of Poland, she also 
said a sentimental good-bye to him, much in 
the tone of the girl who promises to be a sister 
to the man whom, for imperative reasons, it is 
impossible for her to marry. 

" The state of excitement here," she wrote 
to him, " is terrible. Your arrival here would 
increase it, so please do not come. ... A 
146 



ORJLOF AND PONIATOWSKI 



regular correspondence with you would be 
very inconvenient. I have to be very careful 
of appearances, and I have no time to write 
love-letters which might cause unfortunate com- 
plications. I will do whatever I can for you and 
your family — you may rest assured of that; 
but it is necessary for me to be very, very 
carefuh" 

So Poniatowski accepted the inevitable, 
though not without resistance. He pleaded his 
cause in many letters, — now passionate, now 
petulant, — being as deeply in love as any man 
could be ; but he consented at last to pass sorrow- 
fully out of Catherine's life, bribed by the offer 
of a throne which he did not particularly want ; 
and M. de Breteuil, who, though he was not in 
Catherine's confidence, could draw his own con- 
clusions, reported to his Government — 

" I do not know what will be the outcome of 
the Empress's correspondence with M. Ponia- 
towski ; but I think there is no longer room for 
doubt that she has given him a successor in the 
person of M. Orlof, whom she appointed to be 
a Count on the day of her coronation. He is a 
very handsome man. He has been in love with 
the Empress for years ; and I well remember 
the day when she pointed him out to me as 
an absurd person, and laughed at his ridiculous 
passion. However, he has earned the right to 
be treated more seriously. He is a perfect fool, 

147 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



people tell me ; though, as he speaks no word of 
any language but Russian, I have some difficulty 
in judging for myself." 

And then, in a subsequent dispatch — 

44 A few days ago they produced a Russian 
tragedy at the Court, and this favourite (Orlof) 
played the principal part very awkwardly. The 
Empress, however, was so charmed with the graces 
of the actor that she sent for me several times 
to talk about him and ask me what I thought of 
him. With the Comte de Mercy (the Austrian 
Ambassador) she did not even stop at that. He 
was sitting next to her ; and she drew his atten- 
tion enthusiastically, again and again, to Orlof's 
good looks and aristocratic bearing." 

There clearly were no doubts lingering in 
M. de BreteuiPs mind when he wrote that 
second letter ; ^and there were no grounds for 
any. Gregory Orlof had definitely conquered. 
Catherine's feelings for him had passed through 
three stages. She had begun by laughing at him. 
She had proceeded to apologise for him. " I 
know," she said to M. de Breteuil, " that these 
people are quite uneducated, but I owe my 
position to them. They have both honesty and 
courage, and I am confident that they will not 
betray me." Now she let her fascination be seen, 
and called upon all the world to be fascinated 
with her. 
148 



GREGORY ORLOF 



Nor was that all. Encouraged by her old 
friend Bestuchef, she even entertained for a 
while the idea of marrying Gregory Orlof . 

Bestuchef, it will be remembered, had been 
sent to his estates in connection with a plot in 
which Catherine herself might have been impli- 
cated if the compromising papers had not been 
burnt in time. Peter did not recall him; but 
Catherine, of course, lost no time in doing so. 
She gave him a liberal pension, and a seat in the 
Senate ; but, for whatever reason, she did not re- 
store him to his old supreme place in the councils 
of the nation. He was growing old. The new 
men had stronger claims, and it may be that she 
had never quite forgiven him for his rude treat- 
ment of her in the days when she was a mere girl, 
not worth conciliating. It may be, too, that she 
thought him less trustworthy, or less competent, 
than Panin. Whatever the explanation, he was 
dissatisfied, and, conceiving that he might find 
Gregory Orlof more amenable than Catherine, he 
buttonholed him, and whispered in his ear — 

" Gregory Gregorovitch, it is to no purpose 
that Catherine has given you her heart unless 
she presents you with her hand. . . . She can- 
not worthily reward you but by giving you a 
share in that throne which she owes to your 
prowess. Indeed, why should she refuse it ? 
Who is better able than you to support that 
throne against all attempts of conspirators to 

149 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



overthrow it ? Who would be more agreeable 
to the sovereign ? . . . 

" I am sensible, however, that it might not 
be proper for you to make the proposal. 
Obstacles might probably be thrown in your way 
with which your delicacy would forbid you to 
contend. A refusal might occasion you a mutual 
perplexity. Trust yourself to my long experi- 
ence and my friendship. I shall contrive to 
determine the Empress herself to offer you her 
crown." 

Or words to that effect — for, of course, 
there were no reporters present to take down 
the words actually used ; and one can under- 
stand how Gregory Orlof was impressed by such 
advice from such a quarter. Intellectually, he 
was not brilliant ; but he was brave as a lion and 
vain as a peacock. Distinguished by the Empress, 
and flattered by the most experienced of her 
councillors, he was easily persuaded that he 
need set no bounds to his ambition, but would 
adorn a throne. At the same time, he knew 
that he was a parvenu who must walk warily, 
because his progress was sure to be watched 
by many jealous eyes. A subaltern of the 
Guards, with the manners not of a subaltern but 
of a sergeant-major, can easily make enemies 
among officers of higher rank and nobler birth 
by the mere act of succeeding too well in life. 
So he was the very man to be exploited by a 
cunning statesman, and to consent to lie low 
150 



BESTUCHEFS PLAN 



and say nothing — not trusting himself to say 
anything to the point — while the statesman 
worked out a plan for his advancement. 

And Bestuchef had already formed his plan. 
He had formed two plans, in fact ; and he pro- 
ceeded to set the machinery in motion for their 
accomplishment. Associated with him in his 
scheme was Vorontsof, the uncle of Princess 
Dashkof, and Grand Chancellor of the Empire. 



151 



CHAPTER XIV 



The Search for Precedents — The Failure to find any — Objec- 
tions of the Senate — Gregory Orlof established in the 
Post of Favourite 

The first plan was to find, and proclaim, a 
precedent. 

In the case of an Emperor there would, of 
course, have been no difficulty. Russian history 
bristled with precedents for the union of a 
Russian Emperor with the humblest and least 
reputable of his subjects. The precedent of 
Michael, already mentioned, who summoned 
the daughters of the nobility to his Palace, 
bidding them bring their night-gowns, in order 
that, after careful review of their charms, the 
most charming of them might be chosen as 
his bride, would have sufficed. So would the 
precedent of Peter the Great marrying the kept 
mistress of one of his generals. The precedents, 
in short, were so numerous and well known 
that it would not have been worth while to 
cite them. But the case of an Empress was 
different. Jealousies of more moment were 
there involved ; and there was only one pre- 
cedent — and that a doubtful one — avail- 
152 



THE SEARCH FOR PRECEDENTS 



able : the Empress Elizabeth's supposed secret 
marriage with Razumofski — the precentor of the 
imperial chapel. 

It was not quite certain that she had married 
him. He was a discreet man, not given to boast- 
ing, who now lived in retirement, and spent 
his time in reading the Bible. The proofs of 
the marriage (supposing that there had been 
a marriage) were, however, believed to be 
in his hands. The question was whether (sup- 
posing them to exist) they could be got from 
him; whether he could be induced to revive 
the memory of an old romance, and admit 
that his imperial mistress had made an honest 
man of him. Vorontsof undertook to try. He 
called on Razumofski, whom he found sitting 
by the stove reading the Bible, and told him 
what he wanted, and why he wanted it. He 
showed him the decree which he had prepared, 
publicly recognising him as the husband of the 
late Empress, and raising him to the rank of 
Imperial Highness. 

Razumofski took the decree from him, and 
read it carefully. Then he rose, crossed the 
room, and opened the door of an old oak 
cabinet, from which he took a casket of ebony 
and silver. He unlocked the casket, and with- 
drew a roll of parchment tied up with a faded 
pink ribbon. He untied the ribbon, and pro- 
ceeded to examine the parchment. All this 
without speaking a word ; while Vorontsof sat 
facing him, believing that he had gained his end. 

153 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 

But he had not. When he had carefully 
run his eye over all the sheets, Razumofski 
rolled them up again — but he did not hand the 
roll to Vorontsof. On the contrary, he first 
pressed it to his lips, while the tears glistened 
in his hollow eyes and ran down his withered 
cheeks, and then, still without speaking, he 
once more crossed the room to the corner where 
a lamp was burning before a sacred icon. Then, 
with his eyes steadily fixed upon Vorontsof, 
he thrust the roll of parchment into the flame, 
and held it there until it was consumed to ashes. 
Something in his look forbade Vorontsof to in- 
terfere ; and when the work of destruction was 
done, Razumofski sank, with a sigh of relief, 
into a deep chair, and spoke — 

" I have never been anything but the most 
humble slave of Her Majesty the Empress 
Elizabeth. I ask only to be the humble ser- 
vant of her present Majesty. Pray beg her 
to continue the manifestations of her goodwill 
towards me." 

So the first plan failed. The proofs having 
perished, the precedent could not be cited ; 
and Bestuchef was thrown back upon his second 
plan — the organisation of a petition from the 
Russian people to the Empress to call one of 
her subjects to the throne as her consort. He 
succeeded in getting a certain number of sig- 
natures — some bishops and some general officers 
154 



PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE 

were among those who signed ; but the signa- 
tories were not the only persons who had a 
voice in the matter. The cry arose on all 
sides that this sort of thing would never do. 

Gregory Orlof's fellow-conspirator, Hetrof, 
voiced the discontent for one, declaring, accord- 
ing to Princess Dashkof, that " he would be 
the first to plunge his sword into the heart of 
Gregory Orlof, though certain that his own 
death would be the consequence, rather than 
submit to the humiliation of acknowledging 
him for his sovereign, and of witnessing his 
country's disgrace, as the only result of their 
late patriotic exertions." Panin, as sagacious 
as he was obese, was equally firm, though less 
dramatic. A Grand Duchess, he said, might 
please herself in the bestowal of her hand, but — 
" a Madame Orlof can never be Empress of 
Russia " ; and when the project was brought 
forward for discussion in the Senate, one of 
the more aged of the senators did not scruple 
to speak his mind plainly to Catherine's 
face — 

" Since I see that none of my colleagues is 
willing to say what he thinks, then I will do so. 
Your Majesty will permit me to remark that, 
while we are delighted to see our sovereigns 
select subjects on whom to confer their favours 
and affections, we can never consent that men 
who are socially no more than our equals should 
presume to become our masters." 

155 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



Whether that utterance, or Hetrof's threat, 
or Panin's more diplomatically expressed objec- 
tion was the decisive factor does not matter. 
Between them, they produced their effect, and 
compelled Catherine to realise that there were 
lengths to which she must not go. It is doubtful, 
indeed, whether she had ever keenly desired to 
promote her lover to the rank of partner of her 
throne ; and when she found the agitation so 
intense that it was necessary to post sentries 
at Orlof's door for his protection — and when 
there were stories of attempts to lure the sentries 
from their post, in order that the conspirators 
might be enabled to murder Orlof in his sleep — 
she abandoned the design, affecting never to 
have entertained it. 

But she did not abandon it in Poniatowski's 
favour, though it was reported in Paris that she 
had done so, or would do so. 

The rumour ran there that Catherine was 
likely to abdicate in favour of the Grand Duke 
Paul, and join Poniatowski in Poland. Mme 
Geoffrin, whom Poniatowski had met in Paris, 
and who corresponded with him as a mother 
with her son, repeated the report to him, but 
without believing it ; and he knew very well 
that there was no foundation for it. 

"It is six years," he wrote, " since I last 
saw the Empress, and I have little hope of 
ever seeing her again. It is a very cruel de- 
privation for me ; but I must make the best of 
156 



SORROWS OF PONIATOWSKI 

it — just as I have to make the best of so many 
things." 

Six years since he had seen her ; and he still 
loved her, and could love no one else! " Her 
reputation/ 5 he wrote, " is still dear to me." He 
defended it, insisting that she could not con- 
ceivably have had any hand in the imbecile 
Ivan's tragic death, expressing the wish that 
she had wiser counsellors, and recalling the time 
when she had admitted to him that advice was 
necessary for her guidance — 

" She used to acknowledge it. I remember 
her saying, 6 I feel the power over me of the 
man whom I love. May God preserve you for 
me — I shall be the better woman.' I heard 
her say those words, and they were true. If we 
could have a talk together, I could tell you 
things which would convince you of it. ... I 
would rather that she only put herself in the 
wrong with me, and not with the public." 

Whereto Mme Geoffrin could only reply 
that if Catherine had indeed said such things, 
no doubt she had meant them at the time, but 
that it was to be feared that she had since ex- 
pressed similar sentiments to other men ; and 
Poniatowski had to make what he could of that. 
For a moment he turned to Mme Geoffrin her- 
self for consolation, and offered his heart to 
her; but she did not forget that she was old 

157 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



enough to be his mother, and contented herself 
with laughing at him, and giving him good 
advice — 

" My dear boy, it is a fine present which you 
offer me : the heart returned to you from over 
the border. Anyone can see — I smile as I write 
it — that you are very hungry for love. Very 
well. Fall in love with me, if you want to ; but 
don't fall in love — not deeply in love, at all 
events— with anybody else. Love is a dangerous 
emotion for a king. You must amuse yourself, 
of course ; but don't let your heart get seriously 
entangled." 

So the subject dropped, and Poniatowski 
continued to love Catherine in vain, and from 
a distance. He still loved her, as we shall see, 
years afterwards, in spite of her willingness to 
sacrifice him to political exigencies and de- 
prive him of the throne and sceptre which she 
had bestowed ; his throne being nothing to him, 
and Catherine everything. His enduring tender- 
ness is a thing to be remembered, and the ex- 
pressions of it must be set beside the colder 
characterisations of the corps diplomatique in 
any attempt to form a complete picture of her 
personality. They show us something more 
than the glittering sovereign who passed through 
history like the central figure of a magnificent 
procession; something more, too, than the 
alleged Messalina of the North— a woman who 
158 



TRIUMPH OF ORLOF 



boasted her two soul-sides, like the rest of us. 
It was because of the second soul-side that the 
tenderness of this dme sensible stood the strain 
she put on it. One wonders what would have 
happened if Poniatowski had had the nerve to 
disobey her, and come to her. . . . 

But he did not dare ; and therefore one con- 
cludes that, if he had dared, he would have dared 
in vain. He was a Man of Sentiment, engaged 
in unequal conflict with a Man of Gallantry ; a 
Man of Charm, against whom a Strong Man had 
pitted himself. The Strong Man prevailed, as 
Strong Men are apt to do. He did not prevail 
altogether, as we have seen. He could not 
persuade Russia that he would be an acceptable 
Russian Emperor. He failed even, at that time, 
to secure the dignity of a Prince of the Holy 
Roman Empire ; 1 for even Catherine felt that 
the line must be drawn somewhere, and that 
there were some honours of which Guardsmen 
with the rough manners of sergeant-majors were 
unworthy — a prejudice which we may perhaps 
attribute to her German origin and her German 
ideas about caste. But other honours — and 
innumerable offices — were showered upon him. 
He was offered the command of the Engineers, 
the Horse Guards, and the Artillery; he was 
placed in charge of the Colonisation and 
Fortification Departments. A marble palace 
was built for him, bearing over its porch 
the significant inscription : " Constructed as a 

1 He got the coveted honour at a later date. 

159 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



proof of grateful friendship " ; and both the 
English and the French Ambassadors made 
remarks — 

" The more closely I observe M. Orlof," 
wrote Berenger, "the more certain I feel that 
he is Emperor in all but the name. His free- 
and-easy manners with the Empress impress 
every one — the Russians say that nothing of 
the kind has been known in their country since 
the foundation of the monarchy. Trampling 
all etiquette underfoot, he publicly takes such 
liberties with his sovereign as no mistress in 
polite society would tolerate from her lover." 

Nor did Catherine — as yet, at all events — 
show signs of resenting those liberties. On 
the contrary, she continued, as she had begun, 
to bestow her bounties on her favourite on a 
scale of barbaric splendour. He had nothing 
to pay for board and lodging, and his pocket 
money amounted to 10,000 roubles (£2000) a 
month. From beginning to end, he and his 
brothers between them are computed to have 
drawn about 17,000,000 roubles (£3,400,000) from 
the public purse ; and Gregory, beyond a 
doubt, got a good deal more than his just 
fifth share of that large total. He was also 
assigned estates of the size of provinces, and 
whole armies of serfs, to work on them with- 
out payment, and so make them profitable. A 
more personal distinction was the permission to 
160 



TRIUMPH OF ORLOF 



wear in his buttonhole the miniature portrait of 
his mistress and sovereign set in diamonds. 

It did not matter in Russia quite as it would 
have mattered elsewhere — the ambassadorial 
reporters insist strongly upon that. Russia, 
they point out, was accustomed to that sort 
of thing — the Empress Anne had loved a groom 
well enough to make him Duke of Courland; 
so that precedents could be found for the 
appearance of a Russian Empress in the role 
of King Cophetua. Still, there were murmurs. 
The ancient Russian nobility — such as they 
were — did not like the idea of kicking their 
heels in the antechamber of one who had so 
recently been a subaltern of no importance — one 
who, according to Frederick the Great's Am- 
bassador, " had, in his time, sat down to dinner 
with lackeys and artisans." Count Cheremeief, 
the Court Chamberlain, did not see why he 
should be called upon to escort the carriage 
in which the ex- subaltern was privileged to sit 
by the Empress's side. If Gregory Orlof had 
tried to push himself to the front politically 
as well as socially, there would, beyond question, 
have been trouble. 

But that, in spite of Catherine's solicitations, 
he did not care to do, knowing his limitations, 
and feeling more comfortable when he kept 
within them. One is reminded by him of a 
somewhat common type : the athlete who gives 
up athletics, spreads abroad, and lets his 
muscles grow flabby, content to bask in the 
L 161 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



memory of the redoubtable achievements of 
his youth. In vain did Catherine place him at 
the head of various Commissions and Com- 
mittees, and appoint him to preside over the 
deliberations of the Senate. He accepted the 
appointments — and, of course, the emoluments 
— but he consistently neglected all the duties 
attached to them. 

His one notable appearance in the Senate 
was for the purpose of opposing the election 
of Poniatowski to the throne of Poland. It 
is said that he rose in his place and swore at 
Poniatowski, like the trooper that he was ; 
but that intervention was due, of course, to 
jealousy, and not to considerations of state- 
craft. Poniatowski had been his rival ; and 
magnanimity towards rivals — especially rivals 
to whom Catherine had shown a soul-side which 
he himself could not even have seen if it had 
been shown to him — was not one of Gregory 
Orlof's virtues. He seems to have been assured, 
however, — and to have accepted the assurance, — 
that there was nothing to be jealous about. 
He withdrew his objections, and apologised. 
That done, he neglected public affairs, and 
devoted himself to the chase. He pursued the 
bear — and he pursued the maids -of -honour. 
"All the maids -of -honour are at his beck 
and call," writes another French diplomatist, 
Sabatier de Cabres. 

Sabatier does not write as a friend either of 
Catherine or of the Russian people. He sums 
162 



TRIUMPH OF ORLOF 



up the latter in very scornful terms. They 
are for him barbarous babies playing at being 
grown-up people — savages covered with a 
varnish of culture and civilisation which only 
serves to make them more ridiculous when 
it cracks and shows the ugly stuff beneath. 
Catherine, similarly, is an overrated ruler 
who has pursued the bubble reputation by 
the device of pensioning men of letters — 

" Hence her renown for creative genius, all 
the talents, firmness of character, profound 
insight, sublime policy, and all that goes to 
make a great sovereign ! But I dispute that 
verdict, and maintain that it would be difficult 
to have a sovereign more grossly deceived as 
to the true interests of the country, or less in- 
clined to follow up the attempts made by her 
predecessors to consolidate the half-baked 
material of which it is composed." 

An unkind response that to the friendly 
signals flashed from the window which looked 
out upon intellectual Europe. But Sabatier, 
though severe, shows anxiety to be just ; and 
it is notable that while the Semiramis of the 
North is no Semiramis for him, he is careful 
to guard himself against writing her down as 
a Messalina — 

" Calumny," he writes, " has not spared 
her moral character ; but it must be allowed 

168 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



that, while not altogether above reproach, she 
is very far from the excesses of which she 
has been accused. Several intrigues prior to 
the one which now absorbs her have been 
attributed to her with some show of plausibility. 
People even whisper under their breath that 
she has permitted herself certain distractions ; 
but there really is no proof of anything except 
her three known liaisons with M. Soltikof, 
the King of Poland, and Count Gregory Orlof. 
Her passion for the last named is of an un- 
paralleled description, and can only be explained 
by taking account of the tenacity of her ideas. 
At first she loved him to the point of idolatry ; 
then she ran up against the hatred which her 
favourite inspired, and he gained a position 
in her obstinate mind which long habit must 
have caused him to lose in her heart. I am 
convinced that her love for him is much less 
than it was, but that, without having declined 
into mere friendship, it has given place to 
the calm, secure attachment which comes with 
age, after the failure of the resources of youth. 
She is well aware of his frequent infidelities — 
which, indeed, he is at small pains to conceal 
from her. All the maids-of-honour are at his 
beck and call. She knows it, and has demanded 
explanations in terms outspoken to the point of 
indecorum. He runs after every woman who 
attracts him, pays her very little attention, and 
stands on no ceremony with her ; and yet, 
in spite of all that, I doubt whether any man 
164 



TRIUMPH OF ORLOF 



enjoys such a position as his at any of the Courts 
of Europe." 

That was written in 1772, when Catherine 
was forty-three, and had been ten years on the 
throne. It shows us very clearly that the special 
reputation attached to Catherine's name was 
not earned by her in her youth, or in a day. 
It was, in her case, what Balzac calls " the 
terrible love of the woman of forty " (and fifty, 
and even sixty), which excited remark alike 
by its violence and by its variability. Until 
that date Catherine does not seem to have gone 
a great deal further than her predecessors, the 
Empresses Elizabeth and Anne. She had her 
Empire to attend to, and she attended to it in 
person, feeling only a moderate need of those 
" distractions " of which we have heard the 
Ambassador speak. It will be proper to turn 
aside for a moment, and watch her attending 
to it, before pursuing the story of Orlof's hard, 
but unsuccessful, fight for the first place in her 
affections — a fight which had, in fact, already 
begun at the time when Sabatier de Cabres 
declared that his unique position in her regard 
seemed to him irrefragably established. 



165 



CHAPTER XV 



Catherine's Foreign Policy — The kidnapping of Princess 
Tarakanof 

Space forbids any elaborate analysis of Cather- 
ine's foreign policy ; but its broad outlines 
may be indicated. In all likelihood it was in 
reality determined by circumstances, even when 
it appeared to be determined by caprices and 
whims ; but one does not search in vain for a 
feminine note in its inconsistencies. 

Catherine began by disclaiming territorial 
ambitions. " I have already people enough 
to make happy," she said, when there was a 
proposal to incorporate Courland in her Empire. 
" This little strip of territory would add nothing 
to my felicity." Having said that, she pro- 
ceeded to bear a hand in the partition of Poland, 
and to wrest the Crimea and other provinces 
from the Turks ; and her ultimate boast that, 
though she had come to Russia without a dowry, 
she had left her subjects the Crimea and Poland 
as legacy is well known and often quoted. 

Catherine, again, began by issuing a mani- 
festo in which she denounced Frederick the 
Great as her " mortal enemy," but changed 
166 



FOREIGN POLICY 



her mind and opened her arms to him when, 
going through her husband's papers, she dis- 
covered a letter in which he paid her fulsome 
compliments. From that time onwards, she 
acted in conjunction with him, if not actually 
as an instrument in his hands, with England, 
more or less, as a third partner to the entente, 
and France and Austria for her opponents. She 
was not, indeed, a Francophobe of the school 
of Peter, who carried Francophobia to the point 
of serving a company of French comedians 
with notice to quit St. Petersburg. On the 
contrary, as we have seen, she looked to intel- 
lectual and artistic France for sympathy and 
inspiration. But intellectual France was the 
France of the Opposition. The relations with 
official France were strained until a date with 
which we need not yet concern ourselves. They 
certainly were not friendly at the date at which 
Sabatier de Cabres depreciated her intelligence ; 
and meanwhile there had been interference 
with Poland and war with Turkey. 

The condition of things which made inter- 
ference in Poland possible, and almost natural, 
may be illustrated by an anecdote preserved 
in J. B. Scherer's entertaining volume of Russian 
miscellanies — 

" There was, at the Court of Elizabeth, a 
Pole named Novitski, remarkable as a performer 
on the mandolin. On the death of the King 
of Poland, he asked permission to depart ; and 

167 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



he was asked why he wished to go. 6 1 am 
a Polish nobleman, 5 he said. c I hope, as any 
Polish nobleman may, to be elected to the 
throne.' 6 And if, as seems possible, the choice 
of the electors does not fall on you, what do 
you propose to do then ? ' 'In that case,' he 
replied, • 1 hope to be permitted to return to 
St. Petersburg and resume my duties as a man- 
dolinist.' " 

In a country in which even a wandering 
mandolinist could cherish such ambitions, any- 
thing might happen. What happened in this 
case was the imposition of Poniatowski through 
Russian influence to serve Russian interests. 
It is impossible to say whether he was a more 
or a less desirable candidate than the man- 
dolinist, for the mandolinist was a dark horse, 
and did not win. He was the irresistible candi- 
date because he had Catherine at his back. 
There were advisers who represented to her 
that his qualifications were not very obvious, 
seeing that he was only the grandson of an estate 
agent in a small way of business ; but she would 
not listen to their objections. " Even if he 
were an estate agent himself," she said, " I would 
still have him crowned ; " and her insistence 
may be judged from an intercepted dispatch 
to her Ambassador at Warsaw — 

" My dear Count, be sure you look after my 
candidate. I am writing this to you at two 
168 



FOREIGN POLICY 



o'clock in the morning, so you may judge whether 
I am indifferent in the matter." 

And the candidate was duly elected, under 
the pressure of Russian bayonets — a pressure 
so vigorous that Russian officers actually sat in 
the gallery of the Polish Chamber, and, leaning 
down from it, prodded the Member for Cracow, 
because his patriotic oratory displeased them. 
Then, after an interval, but nevertheless as a 
consequence, followed the first Turkish war. 

Russia was not in the least ready for war. 
Graphic stories are told in the dispatches of 
Sabatier de Cabres and others of skeleton regi- 
ments, inadequate commissariat, and artillery 
hurried to the front in post carts and sticking 
in the mud by the way. But luck and energy 
prevailed. A competent general was found 
in Rumantsof, who routed an Ottoman army 
more than four times as large as his own. Fresh 
territory was added to the Empire ; and the 
Russian fleet made its first appearance in 
Mediterranean waters, under the command of 
Admiral Spiridof, who was placed, in his turn, 
under the direction and supervision of Alexis 
Orlof. 

Those naval operations are not without an 
element of farcical comedy. Catherine reviewed 
the fleet before it started, and complained, in a 
confidential letter to Panin, that she had seen 
it fire all day at a target without once hitting 
it, and that it manoeuvred more like a fleet of 

169 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



herring-boats than a naval squadron. It took 
five months to sail from Cronstadt to Minorca ; 
and of the fifteen vessels which set out only 
eight reached their destination — a progress which 
affords an interesting precedent for a more 
recent Russian naval exploit. It is no wonder 
that Catherine dismissed Spiridof and applied 
to England for an Admiral to take his place. 
She was given Elphinston, who destroyed the 
Turkish fleet with fire-ships in the muddy Bay 
of Tchesme ; but the only achievement of the 
expedition for which a Russian could take the 
undivided credit was the kidnapping of the so- 
called Princess Tarakanof . 

That story is another of the many Russian 
historical mysteries. It may not be altogether 
possible, in relating it, to separate legend from 
fact, but one may begin with the version of 
the transaction set forth in Wraxall's Historical 
Memoirs. He heard it, in 1799, at a dinner- 
party in Berkeley Square, from Sir John Dick, 
who had been British Consul at Leghorn at the 
time — 

" During the time," said Sir John, " that the 
Russian Squadron lay in the harbour of Leghorn, 
in 1771, Alexis Orlof, who was the Admiral, 
resided frequently, if not principally, at Pisa, 
where he hired a splendid house. One morning, 
about eleven o'clock, a Cossack, who was in his 
service and who acted as his courier, arrived at 
my door, charged with a message to inform me 
170 



PRINCESS TARAKANOF 

that his master, with some company, in three 
carriages meant to dine with me on that day. 
I accordingly ordered a dinner to be prepared 
for his reception. When he arrived, he brought 
with him a lady, whom he introduced to my 
wife and to myself ; but he never named her, 
only calling her Questa dama. She was by no 
means handsome, though genteel in her figure, 
apparently thirty years of age, and had the 
air of a person who had suffered in her health. 
There seemed something mysterious about her, 
which excited my curiosity, but which I could 
not penetrate. Considering her with attention, 
it struck me forcibly that I had seen her before, 
and in England. Being determined if possible 
to satisfy myself on this point, as we stood 
leaning against the chimney-piece in my drawing- 
room before dinner, I said to her, ' I believe, 
ma'am, you speak English.' 4 1 speak only one 
little,' answered she. We sat down to dinner, 
and after the repast, Alexis Orlof proposed to 
my wife and to another lady who was there 
present to accompany him and the female 
stranger on board his ship. They both declining 
it, Orlof took her with him in the evening. . . . 

66 On the ensuing morning, when Orlof came 
on shore, he proceeded to my house. His eyes 
were violently inflamed, and his whole counte- 
nance betrayed much agitation. Without ex- 
plaining to me the cause or the reason of this 
disorder, he owned that he had passed a very 
unpleasant night ; and he requested me to let 

171 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



him have some of the most amusing books in 
my library, in order to divert the lady who was 
on board his ship. I never saw her again ; but 
I know that, soon afterwards, she was sent by 
Alexis in a frigate to Cronstadt, where, without 
being ever landed, she was transferred up the 
Neva to the fortress of Schliisselburg, at the 
mouth of the Lake Ladoga. Catherine there 
confined her in the very room that Peter Hi. 
had caused to be constructed with intent to 
shut up herself in it. The lady unquestionably 
died in that prison of chagrin." 

So far Sir John. His narrative is, to some 
extent, that of a man placed on his defence — 
suspected, if not actually accused, of having 
assisted Alexis Orlof to kidnap a helpless woman. 
Wraxall listened to it with a scepticism which 
he is at no pains to conceal ; and there are, of 
course, striking additions to it from other hands, 
purporting to solve the riddle of Princess Tara- 
kanof's identity, and to unfold the drama of 
her fate. 

The so-called Princess, according to the 
current gossip, was in reality the daughter born 
of the secret marriage of the Empress Elizabeth 
to Razumofski. She had in her possession, it 
was declared, a will in which the Empress 
Elizabeth named her as her successor, was 
plotting to claim the throne, and had been 
promised the support of the Turkish army, 
and also of a considerable party of Polish mal- 
172 



PRINCESS TARAKANOF 



contents — hence the necessity of capturing her, 
by fair means or foul, and taking her to Russia. 
Her death was due to a rising of the Neva, which 
flooded the dungeon in which she was confined 
at Schlusselburg, and drowned her. A subject 
picture of her last agony, by the Russian painter 
Flavintski, was exhibited in St. Petersburg in 
1864 and in Paris in 1867 — attracting so much 
indignant attention that the Russian Govern- 
ment, even at that distance of time, thought it 
well to search the archives and set forth an 
official version of the incident. 

It set forth, among other things, that Schlus- 
selburg was not the prison in which Princess 
Tarakanof was incarcerated, and that the flood 
in which she was alleged to have perished 
did not occur until two years' after her death. 
The statement, of course, can no more be 
checked than can the official accounts of 
any of the other tragedies of the Russian 
prisons ; but there is a considerable literature 
of the subject, by no means all of it official, 
and the career of the unfortunate woman can 
be traced, if not completely, at least sufficiently 
to make a connected story. 

She was not a daughter of Elizabeth, or 
a princess of any sort or kind — Sir John Dick 
was absolutely right about that. She was 
an adventuress — neither more nor less; an ad- 
venturess whose face was her fortune. Whether 
she was the daughter of a baker of Franconia 
or of an innkeeper of Prague is uncertain, 

173 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



and does not matter. It is said that she was 
brought up at Kiel until she was nine, and 
was then taken to the East, and lived first 
at Bagdad, and afterwards at Ispahan. It 
is also said that a Persian prince became 
her protector, took her to London (where Sir 
John Dick supposed that he had seen her), 
and there deserted her, and that she found her 
way thence to Paris in 1772. Be that as it 
may, it is in Paris that we first get definite 
and undeniable information about her. 

We find her there, in 1772, calling herself 
Princess Ali Emettee de Vlodomir, and giving 
out that she was the niece of a wealthy Persian 
notable. She was very beautiful, and lived 
richly, with two elderly barons, apparently of 
German nationality, one of whom was under- 
stood to be a relative. Many admirers were in 
attendance, including Prince Michael Oginski 
of Poland. Her relations with Poles were to 
be her undoing, and that seems to have been 
the beginning of them. Before very long, 
however, her establishment at Paris had to 
be broken up, because the Baron von Embs, 
who passed as her relative, was unable to pay 
his bills. It transpired that the Baron von 
Embs was not a baron at all, but the prodigal 
son of a Ghent merchant. He disappeared, 
and Princess Ali Emettee de Vlodomir disap- 
peared also, albeit in a different direction. 
She too, it seems, had creditors, and was not 
in a position to give them their dues. 
174 



PRINCESS TARAKANOF 



At this point there is a gap in her career, 
which cannot be filled up ; but after the lapse 
of a few months we rediscover her at Frankfort. 
She had changed her name, and was now a 
Princess of Azof, heir to the throne of a princi- 
pality under the protection of Russia. Any- 
one who had troubled to search the Almanack 
de Gotha, which had then been just four years 
in existence, would have discovered that there 
was no such principality and no such princess ; 
but the Almanack de Gotha was not yet recog- 
nised as the final court of appeal in these 
matters, and the story of the adventuress was 
believed. She flourished in the best of the Frank- 
fort inns until the Duke of Limburg, fascinated 
by her charms, installed her in his castle at Ober- 
stein, and even proposed to marry her. 

So far so good. The adventuress was within 
an ace of becoming an honest woman, and 
living happily ever afterwards. Unfortunately, 
however, she was too expensive for her protector, 
as fascinating adventuresses are somewhat apt 
to be ; and when relations became strained 
on that account, she turned her beautiful eyes 
in the direction of Prince Radzivil, who was 
then living at Mannheim. 

He was a wealthy and hot-headed Pole, op- 
posed to Russian interference in Polish affairs. 
His estates had been confiscated, but he had 
got away with a good deal of portable property. 
It was believed that he carried about with him 
twelve life-size statues of the Twelve Apostles — 

175 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



all of solid gold — and paid his way by chipping 
pieces off them as required. However that 
may have been, he was rich enough for the 
practical purposes of the adventuress ; and she 
won his favour by whispering in his ear the 
mysterious story of her relationship to the 
Empress Elizabeth — adding that she had been 
brought up in a convent, banished to Siberia, 
released by sympathetic gaolers, and escorted 
over the frontier to Persia. 

We need not jump to the conclusion that 
Radzivil believed that story ; but, whether he 
believed it or not, he saw a means of exploiting 
it to his advantage. He had already contem- 
plated joining the Turkish army — he would 
be a doubly welcome recruit if he brought 
with him a pretender to the Russian throne, 
in whose name a Russian insurrection might 
be contrived. He took her away, therefore, 
from her affianced husband, and conducted 
her first to Venice, and then to Ragusa, en 
route for Constantinople. It was while she 
was at Ragusa, where the French Consul ceded 
his house to her, that Alexis Orlof, who was 
at Leghorn, heard of her proceedings. It is 
said that she wrote to him, believing him to 
be a man with a grievance, and likely to take 
her side ; but, if that was her belief, it was 
a mistaken one. Alexis wrote home for orders ; 
and the instructions sent to him were that 
he must bring the pretender, who was now 
styling herself Princess Tarakanof, to Russia 
176 



PRINCESS TARAKANOF 



at any cost, even if Ragusa had to be bom- 
barded in order to secure her. 

Before the instructions arrived, the Princess 
had left Ragusa, and had once more changed 
her name. She now called herself Countess 
Pimberg, procuring money by selling spurious 
decorations and titles, yet not raising enough of 
it to satisfy her needs. The Russo-Turkish war 
having come to an unexpected end, Radzivil 
had no further use for her ; but she made the 
acquaintance of Sir William Hamilton, and 
tried to borrow from him. Sir William recom- 
mended her to Dick, whom we have already 
met, and who was a banker as well as a Consul ; 
and Dick gave information to Orlof. 

It was arranged that Alexis should meet 
her at Dick's house. He not only met her 
there, but made love to her, and proposed to 
marry her and organise a revolution which 
should place them jointly on the throne. She 
fell in with his views, and a mock marriage, 
believed by her to be a real one, was performed. 
Then, of course, Alexis proposed to take his 
bride on board his ship, telling her that he had 
arranged a sham naval battle for her diversion. 
He had also arranged that the guns should 
fire a salute to her, and that the sailors should 
receive her with shouts of " Vive Fimperatrice ! " 
But that was the end of her illusions. When she 
descended to the cabin, it was explained to 
her that she was no wife, but a prisoner, and 
that her ultimate fate would be settled after 
m 177 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



the St. Petersburg police had inquired into 
the rights of her case. 

That is the Russian account of her capture ; 
and the Russian account of her end is that 
she was found to be in an advanced stage of 
pulmonary consumption, and died in prison on 
4th December 1775. Perhaps it is true. It is 
a shade more credible that Princess Tarakanof 
died of consumption than that Peter m. died of 
colic. The one story, however, aroused almost 
as widespread a scepticism as the other ; and 
the scepticism, this time, was attended with 
an indignation which drove Alexis Orlof out 
of Italy in fear for his life. 

Catherine wrote to him to say that she 
thoroughly approved of his conduct in every 
particular. Whether he had acquainted her 
with all the particulars — with those of the 
mock marriage, for example — one may take 
leave to doubt. His role in her reign — in 
the first half of it, at all events — is that of the 
man who did the dirty work ; and he may 
very well have preferred to do it in his own 
way, content to be judged by results. That, 
too, may very well have been the line of the 
officer who is said to have starved the adven- 
turess in prison in order to induce her to confess 
her guilt. Catherine, after all, was chiefly 
concerned with results, and seldom showed 
suspicion of her instruments.. The throne which 
she had ascended through violence was still 
unstable ; and she had a good deal to think 
178 



PRINCESS TARAKANOF 



about besides those affairs of the heart which 
are commonly supposed to have monopolised 
her attention. It will be worth while to give 
an account of some other troubles and interests 
which occupied her before reverting to the 
story of the fall of Gregory Orlof and the rise 
of his rapid series of successors. 



179 



CHAPTER XVI 



The Visit of Diderot — The Insurrection of Pugachef 

One of Catherine's distractions at the time under 
consideration was the visit of Diderot — the 
most ready of all the philosophers to respond 
to the signals which we have seen her flashing 
to the intellectual world. The visit was not 
altogether a success either from his point of 
view or hers, but it presents features of lively 
interest. 

Diderot had not the polished cynicism of 
d'Alembert, who concealed his fear of colic 
beneath the plea of incapacity for the employ- 
ment proposed to him ; nor had he the discretion 
of Voltaire, who avoided disillusion by content- 
ing himself with flattering the Empress from a 
distance. He had the simple mind of a child 
who believes that, if things are not what they 
seem, then they must be better than they seem. 
He had an enthusiasm which was ready to boil 
over as milk does, and a disposition to make 
himself generally useful. So when Catherine 
sent him 50,000 francs, he decided to drive to 
St. Petersburg to thank her for the gift. 

Very possibly a " lively sense of favours to 

180 



VISIT OF DIDEROT 

come " was one of the elements of his gratitude — 
that, in fact, will appear as we proceed. But it 
was by no means the only element. Catherine 
had really made an impression on Diderot, and 
he took her as seriously as he took philosophy 
itself. He had rendered her some really useful 
services by collecting works of art for her 
galleries. He had tried, though unsuccessfully, 
to render her a still greater service by buying 
the manuscript of Rulhiere's piquant account 
of her revolution which was being read aloud 
at fashionable gatherings in Paris. He was not 
one of those who gossiped about her family 
affairs or wanted to know what she had done 
with her husband, but was quite willing to 
believe that whatever had happened could be 
satisfactorily explained. For him, in short, 
Catherine was, in very truth, the Semiramis of 
the North — just that and nothing else ; and he 
was persuaded that she was as anxious to listen 
as he was to talk — as eager to learn as he was 
to teach. He set out to her, therefore, as the 
self-accredited Ambassador of Philosophy, ex- 
pecting to be asked to complete Catherine's 
education and show her how to govern her 
dominions. 

His friends were full of apprehension. 
Diderot, they remembered, was the son of a 
cutler, and was not used to Courts. Therefore, 
they argued, he would commit gaucheries, and 
would be shown the door. Things were not, in 
fact, quite so bad as that ; but they tended a 

181 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



little in that direction. Diderot was an un- 
conventional philosopher, and Catherine was 
an unconventional sovereign ; but their un- 
conventionalities did not dovetail. 

The trouble began because Catherine had 
forgotten that Diderot was coming, and had 
provided no lodging for him, so that he had to 
throw himself on the hospitality of his friend 
Narishkin. The trouble was accentuated when 
he turned up at the palace in a rusty suit of 
black, with the result that Catherine sent him 
a gaudy ready-made costume, in order that he 
might be relatively presentable. The trouble 
was not altogether assuaged by his deportment 
when received in audience. He had no intention 
of being rude, but he was naturally incapable of 
respect for ranks and persons. Consequently, 
when he got excited, and the Empress did not 
agree with everything he said, he addressed 
her as " my good woman," and shook her by 
the arm, and banged the table. Moreover, it is 
in one of her own letters that we read that she 
caused that table to be placed between herself 
and the philosopher because of his incorrigible 
habit of emphasising his points by slapping her 
on the thigh. 

The most unsatisfactory thing of all, how- 
ever, from Diderot's own point of view, was that, 
though he talked and talked, — he was sometimes 
allowed to talk for three hours without interrup- 
tion, — he made no progress. He had come as 
an instructor, and was received as an object 
182 



VISIT OF DIDEROT 



of curiosity. He presented memorandum after 
memorandum, advising the Empress on all 
departments of her policy ; and none of the 
advice was taken. The Empress said that he 
seemed to her to combine the wisdom of an old 
man with the ignorance and inexperience of a 
child, and at last she snubbed him, saying — 

" Monsieur Diderot, I have listened with the 
most intense pleasure to the inspirations of your 
brilliant intellect ; but the application of these 
noble principles, which I assure you I quite 
understand, though it would do beautifully in 
books, would work out very badly in practice. 
. . . You only work on paper, which puts up 
with anything, and presents no obstacles to your 
imagination or to your pen. I, a poor Empress, 
have to work with human nature for my material; 
and that is a much more ticklish business." 

" And, after that," said Catherine, when she 
told the story to the Comte de Segur and the 
Prince de Ligne, " we confined our conversations 
to questions of literature and morality." 

The reports of those conversations, however, 
have not been preserved ; and it only remains 
to relate that Diderot decided to return to 
France. The waters of the Neva, which still 
have an evil reputation in spite of the fact that 
they have been blessed regularly for hundreds 
of years, disturbed his digestive functions. He 
suffered from colic, though not from that fatal 

183 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



kind of colic which d'Alembert had feared ; and 
he was also conscious that Russian functionaries 
were jealous of him, and suspicious of his 
revolutionary ideas. So he wrote the Empress 
a farewell letter, in which he pointed out that, 
though he had journeyed to her dominions as 
the Ambassador of Philosophy, Philosophy had 
not paid his travelling expenses. 

The Empress took the hint, and sent a 
servant to him with three bags, each containing 
a thousand roubles. Pie had asked for less, but 
he had hoped for more ; so that we find ex- 
pressions of disappointment breaking out in 
his letters home. To his wife he presents a 
balance sheet in which he shows that, when 
accounts are squared, he will only be £200 — 
and perhaps less — to the good ; while he writes 
to Mile Volland : " You need not be sceptical 
about my eulogies of this astounding woman, 
for I have received practically no payment for 
them." 

A comparison of the gifts received by Diderot 
with those bestowed upon the Orlofs and others 
may perhaps help us to measure the importance 
which Catherine attached to philosophers and 
favourites respectively. When, that is to say, 
we get down to the bed-rock of largess, we find 
the benefits of the S emir amis of the North dis- 
tributed between these two classes of the com- 
munity in much the same proportion as by 
other sovereigns. All that one can say is that 
her attitude towards both classes alike was 
184 



VISIT OF DIDEROT 



more effusive than that of other sovereigns ; 
though it may be to the point to add that her 
grants to her lovers largely consisted of landed 
estates and the peasants attached to them, 
and that, if she had given Diderot an army of 
ten thousand serfs, he would not have known 
what to do with them. 

Perhaps, too, Diderot would have been able 
to do more for Philosophy and the practical 
application of it to methods of government if 
he had come to St. Petersburg at an earlier date, 
when Catherine had only just begun to flash sig- 
nals to the philosophic West, and was setting 
to work at the reform of her dominions with 
the vigorous activity of a new broom. She cer- 
tainly meant well in those days, and was inspired 
with noble sentiments copied out of the writings 
of the best authors — notably Montesquieu and 
Beccaria. Her famous Instruction to the Legis- 
lative Commission, issued in 1767, is full of the 
very noblest sentiments, albeit somewhat of 
the copy-book order. " The rich," Catherine 
wrote, " ought not to oppress the poor." 
" Patriotism," she declares, "is a means of 
preventing crime." " Our peoples," she pro- 
claimed, " do not exist for our benefit, but we 
exist for theirs." 

With much more in the same tone. Nothing 
could be better in its way ; but far less came of 
it than might have been expected. Catherine 
ran up against the Russian passion for talking 
instead of acting — for shrugging the shoulders 

185 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



and saying " Nitchevo." Her Senate comported 
itself like a schoolboys' debating society. The 
reports of its proceedings are a ludicrous ex- 
ample of verbose inadequacy to a great task. 
It devoted six sessions to considering whether 
the Empress should or should not be styled 
" Catherine the Great, the Wise, the Mother of 
her Country ; " and Catherine gave utterance 
to her impatience. " I summoned you," she 
wrote to the President, " to examine the laws 
of the country, and you spend your time in 
discussing my personal attributes." 

Nor were the debates much more profitable 
when the Senate actually got to its task of 
examining the laws of Russia. We read that 
a debate on the laws governing the rights 
of merchants was interrupted in order that 
Leon Narishkin might read a memorandum 
on hygiene. We also read that another debate 
was interrupted in order that a medical senator 
might intercalate a puff of a remedy for chil- 
blains. So the deliberations dragged on, and 
the Ambassadors from the West observed and 
smiled. They were described by the British 
Ambassador as "a joke," and by the French 
Ambassador as 44 a comedy." Catherine got 
tired of them, and they ceased, leaving the serfs 
still in slavery, and torture still a recognised 
part of the machinery of the Courts of Justice. 
Such reforms as were instituted were not legis- 
lative but administrative, and even these were 
disappointing. 
186 



VISIT OF DIDEROT 



Catherine, in short, had made the discovery 
which we have seen her announcing to Diderot : 
that rulers have to work under different condi- 
tions, and with different material, from politi- 
cal philosophers — and that Russian material 
was particularly difficult to work with. In 
certain directions, of course, she could make 
a great display of enlightenment. She could 
dispatch geographers to explore the remoter 
parts of her Empire, and decree an expedition 
to Lapland to observe the transit of Venus; 
she could fetch Euler from Berlin to take his 
place in her Academy of Science, and sum- 
mon Dimsdale from London to inoculate her 
with smallpox to the accompaniment of the 
prayers and hymns of the faithful; she could 
import artists and artisans, and invite foreign 
agriculturists to till the soil of the steppes; 
but she could not make Russia a civilised 
country, because the Russians were not a 
civilised people. The decree which she pro- 
mulgated enjoining them not to talk about 
matters which they did not understand was an 
insufficient civilising force ; and she tended to 
grow cynical. 

" These peasants are very dirty — why do 
they never wash ? " Diderot once asked her. 

" Why should they trouble to wash, seeing 
that their bodies belong not to them but to 
their masters ? " was Catherine's reply. 

And then there is the story of Prince Galitzin 
complaining that the Prefect of the St. Peters- 

187 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



burg Police had had the presumption to whip 
the servants of certain highly placed personages, 
— his own servants among the number, — and 
Catherine rejoining : "I never draw invidious 
distinctions between my subjects myself — why 
should you expect the Prefect of Police to do 
so ? " 

Whence it appears that equality, in Russian 
eyes, meant the right of every man to wallop 
not only his own nigger but his neighbour's 
also ; while justice at the same time included 
the right of a nobleman to wallop, or cause to 
be walloped by his flunkeys, any tradesman 
who pressed him unseasonably for the settle- 
ment of an account. The transaction some- 
times caused trouble when the tradesman was 
a foreigner with an Ambassador to speak for 
him ; but among Russians it passed as an 
ordinary experience in the everyday life of a 
shopkeeper. The French Ambassador reports 
that he and his English colleague, differing 
about many things, agreed in deprecating this 
particular trait in the Russian character. 

Occupation with such domestic matters, 
however, though not very fruitful of results, 
must have taken up a good deal of Catherine's 
time. She really aspired to be the Mother of 
her People, — and not merely, to quote the old 
witticism, of " a good many of them," — though 
she set about her maternal duties with amateur- 
ish fussiness. If she also aspired to be the 
head of something of the nature of a matri- 
188 



PUGACHEF 



archal system, at least her first idea was that 
her favourites should also be her collaborators 
— her partners in state-craft as well as pleasure. 
The office of favourite was, as it were, a post 
in the Civil Service — though not in what we 
nowadays call the " permanent Civil Service " ; 
and her devotion to a favourite, during the 
first ten years of her reign, by no means implied 
neglect of imperial affairs. 

Imperial affairs, indeed, could by no means 
at that period be neglected with impunity ; 
for, in addition to her preoccupation with 
internal reform and foreign war, Catherine 
was continually troubled with doubts as to 
the stability of her throne ; and those doubts 
were not removed by the death of the imbecile 
Ivan. The shade of her husband still haunted 
and vexed her. Though she had done her best 
to make it clear that he had really joined the 
dead, who tell no tales, there were those of her 
subjects who remained incredulous. Pretenders 
arose, assuming the style of Peter m. — not 
one Pretender only, but several in succession. 
The first movement of the kind occurred in 
1765, and the second in 1769 ; and then, in 
1773, began the more formidable insurrection 
of Pugachef. 

Pugachef was the son of a Cossack of the 
Don — a military deserter who had served in 
the Seven Years' War. It is said (though it is 
also denied) that he bore a considerable resem- 

189 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



blance to Peter in. One first hears of him as 
a fugitive in Poland, harboured by hermits to 
whom he related that a Russian officer had once 
said to him, " If the Emperor Peter in., my 
master, were not dead, I should believe that I 
saw him once more in thee ; " and a hermit, 
returning to the hermitage, and seeing him 
for the first time, supported this story by ex- 
claiming, " Is not that the Emperor Peter ill. ? " 
The idea that he actually was, or possibly 
might be, or could plausibly pretend to be, 
Peter ra., was thus implanted in his mind. 
The hermits and some other ecclesiastics en- 
couraged him because of their dissatisfaction 
with Catherine's ecclesiastical policy. 

Some Russian officials got wind of his pro- 
ceedings, and arrested him on a charge of sedition. 
The ecclesiastics provided him with money, 
and he bribed his guardians and escaped from 
his prison. When he first raised his standard, in 
September 1773, he had only nine followers ; but 
within a few days he was at the head of three 
hundred rebels. With this force he summoned 
a town garrisoned by five thousand Cossacks 
and two regiments of infantry to surrender, 
giving out that he was indeed Peter in., who 
had escaped from Ropscha at the instant when 
his assassins were about to murder him; that 
the body of another victim of tyranny had been 
shown to the populace as his ; that his enemies 
had hidden him, but that he now appealed for 
help to restore him to his rights. 
190 



PUGACHEF 



He was believed. The acceptance of such 
stories is the price which the Russian Govern- 
ment has always had to pay for its dark and 
devious courses and its policy of keeping the 
masses in ignorance. The Cossacks came over 
to Pugachef, with eleven of their officers. 
The town capitulated ; the Governor was 
hanged. The news of the success, spreading 
like a prairie fire, brought other adherents — all 
those who had grievances, and all those who 
delighted in the prospect of loot. Pugachef 
soon had fourteen thousand men under his 
orders, and was strong enough to threaten 
Moscow. 

So it was civil war, — and civil war of the 
bloodiest and most barbarous character, — a civil 
war which shook the throne, though it did not 
avail to overthrow it. The recital of its vicissi- 
tudes would be a dull and hardly intelligible 
business ; but ne may mention one or two of 
its atrocities ^nd bizarre spectacular effects. 
There is a story of a siege of Yaitsk, in which 
the inhabitants were reduced to the necessity 
of eating leather; and a story of a siege of 
Oranburg, in the course of which the citizens 
made a jelly of the skins of animals, and " pul- 
verising it, made it into bread by mixing with 
it a little flour." One reads of the Governor 
of a captured fortress being impaled alive, 
and of an astronomer being lifted on to 
pikes, " so as to be near the stars," and then 
hacked to pieces by Cossacks. One also reads 

191 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



of the pillage of innumerable country houses, 
and the ruthless massacre of their inhabitants; 
of a coinage bearing Pugachef's image and 
superscription, and the motto Redivivus et 
ultor ; of Pugachef's Court — with peasant girls 
enrolled as maids-of -honour, compelled to curt- 
sey to their Emperor, and whipped if they did 
not curtsey properly ; and, finally, of Pugachef's 
marriage — 

" Although he had been married for some 
years to Sophia, the daughter of a Cossack, and 
had three children by his union, he had the 
effrontery at Yaitsk to marry a public woman, 
and celebrated his nuptials with all the bac- 
chanal licentiousness worthy of the wife he had 
espoused." 

And, all this time, there was a price of a 
hundred thousand roubles on Pugachef's head, 
and Catherine's generals were marching here, 
there, and everywhere, to entrap him. They 
defeated him, and cut him off from his supplies, 
and then his host melted away. As Castera 
writes — 

" Hunger, thirst, and awakening conscience 
opened the eyes of his followers. As he was 
prolonging his miserable life by gnawing the 
bones of a horse, some of the principal of them 
ran up to him, saying, ' Come, thou hast been 
long enough Emperor.' He fired a pistol, and 
192 



PUGACHEF 



shattered the arm of the foremost ; the rest of 
the Cossacks bound him, ran away with their 
prisoner over the desert . . . and sent a mess- 
enger to the commandant of the place to inform 
him of what they had done." 

So they took him to Moscow, and then — 

" The sentence passed on Pugachef was that 
he should have his two hands and both his feet 
cut off ; that they should be shown to the 
people ; and that afterwards he should be 
quartered alive. But this butchering sentence 
was not fulfilled. By some persons it is said 
that it was mitigated by a secret order from the 
Empress. Others pretend that the executioner 
was less inhuman than the judges ; and others 
again affirm that it was by a mere mistake of 
the man. However it may be, Pugachef was 
first decapitated ; after which his body was cut 
into quarters, which were exposed in as many 
quarters of the town. Five of his principal 
accomplices were likewise beheaded ; three others 
were hanged ; and eighteen more underwent the 
knout and were sent to Siberia." 

That was the end of a rebellion which is said 
to have cost Russia " the destruction of a great 
number of towns and of upwards of two hundred 
and fifty villages, the interruption of the works 
at the mines of Orenburg, and the whole trade of 
Siberia." Catherine affected to treat the matter 
N 193 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



lightly, and jested to Voltaire about " le marquis 
de Pugachef." Her personal fearlessness at 
such moments of emergency was one of the 
elements of her greatness. The rebellion did 
quite as much as the passive resistance of 
Russian Conservatives to check her enthusiasm 
for reform ; and it helped to keep her hands full. 
It was not till about this date, when she was a 
woman of about forty-five, that she allowed her 
interests to be concentrated on the affections of 
her heart, and astonished the spectators of the 
affairs of her heart alike by her ardour and by 
her mutability. 



194 



CHAPTER XVII 



Intrigues against Gregory Orlof — His Supersession in the 
Post of Favourite by Vasilchikof 

It has already been stated that Gregory Orlof 
was unfaithful to Catherine, and made havoc 
of the virtue of her maids-of-honour. The thing 
was notorious, and all the Ambassadors knew 
that Catherine was more jealous of her maids' 
virtue than of her own. They reported that 
she made scenes with Gregory on account of 
his misconduct, and that the language in 
which she publicly reproached him was " some- 
what less than decorous." There were rumours, 
too, that, when she complained in private, 
Gregory knocked her about; and this was at 
the time when Catherine was approaching 
what we are now told to call " the dangerous 
age." 

There is no need to enlarge upon the 
dangers of that age; but it is to be noted that 
it does, in Catherine's case, mark an epoch, 
and was not, in her case, a transitory period 
of hysteria. No calm, that is to say, succeeded 
to the storm ; and no point was ever reached at 
which she recognised that youth was over and 

195 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



age had been attained. On the contrary, the 
autumn of her life was occupied with efforts to 
renew the spring, and was one of those autumns 
which prolong themselves well into the winter. 
It began when she was about forty-three, and 
did not cease until she died, well advanced in the 
sixties. 

She had never, it is true, boasted of being 
a virgin empress ; but her love-affairs had 
hardly been more miscellaneous than those of 
her predecessor. Sentiment had been involved 
in them, and they had been durable. It would 
have been practically impossible for her, in her 
position, to seek a consort among foreign princes, 
and her people would not allow her to raise a 
subject to the throne ; but her alliances, alike 
with Poniatowski and with Gregory Orlof , had 
been very much like marriages. She had not 
been capriciously fickle, and the affairs of her 
heart only figure incidentally in the narrative 
of the earlier years of her reign. But now 
that " dangerous age " was upon her, and 
with it came a more acute intensity of passion, 
a more mutable caprice, and a desire for the 
stimulus of variety. 

In a humbler station, or in a Court with more 
moral traditions, she would have found obstacles 
in her path ; as Empress of All the Russias, she 
found none. It was not merely that, as an 
autocrat, she was free, within the limits explained, 
to do what she liked, even to the extent of 
flying in the face of public opinion — there was 
196 



INTRIGUES AGAINST ORLOF 



practically no public opinion for her to fly in 
the face of. Ambassadors might smile, or even 
chuckle— one of them, 1 in fact, got into trouble 
with his Foreign Office for filling his dispatches 
with smoking-room stories about her passionate 
propensities, to the exclusion of graver matters ; 
but the Ambassadors did not count, and the 
native atmosphere was entirely favourable to her 
proceedings. We have seen her senators telling 
her to her face that they were " delighted to 
see their sovereigns select subjects on whom 
to confer their favours and affections " ; and 
we have not to look much further in order to 
see her taking them at their word. For them 
as for her, the office of favourite was a post in 
the Civil Service. The most that a minister 
ever tried to do was to subject the office to the 
influences of ministerial jobbery, and arrange 
thereby to have a friend at Court. 

A story is told of an attempt to obtain 
the office for Bernardin de Saint- Pierre, the 
famous author of Paul et Virginie, who visited 
Russia in 1764, with a scheme for founding a 
New Republic on the shores of the Aral Sea ; 
but that story may very well have been in- 
vented by Bernardin himself in his old age, 
or by Aime-Martin, his romantic biographer, 
on his behalf. It is true that Bernardin speaks, 
in a letter to the French Foreign Minister, 
M. de Vergennes, of " the very particular kind- 
ness shown to me by Her Imperial Majesty 

1 The Chevalier de Corberon. 

197 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



Catherine n. " ; but it is not clear that the 
kindness consisted of anything more than a 
gratuity of fifteen hundred francs, and his 
latest biographer, M. Maurice Souriau, declares 
that there is nothing in his papers, preserved 
at Havre, which confirms the legend. 

Probably it is untrue. There is indirect 
evidence to that effect apart from the fact 
that in 1764 Orlof's supremacy was hardly 
challengeable. According to Aime-Martin, w T hen 
Bernardin sat one day in Catherine's ante- 
chamber, waiting for an audience, Orlof " passed 
through it in his slippers and dressing-gown, 
leaving M. de Saint-Pierre profoundly distressed, 
and in a mood to sit down and write a satire 
against favourites." That certainly does not 
look as if Bernardin had ever been Gregory's 
successful rival ; and we may fairly leave that 
story and pass on to the time when real and 
effective rivals arose. 

The first of them was a certain Wysocki, 
of whom one knows nothing in particular 
except that Catherine smiled on him for% a 
season and then ceased to smile — and that he 
was the nominee of Panin and others who 
wished to see Gregory Orlof deposed from 
favour. He emerged from the obscurity from 
which he was so soon to return in 1772, at 
the time of a terrible outbreak of the plague 
at Moscow. 

The plague had affected the Muscovites 
much as the cholera affects the Calabrians 
198 



INTRIGUES AGAINST ORLOF 

to-day. When they were not dying like flies, 
they were rioting like hooligans, and super- 
stitiously opposing every sanitary precaution. 
They murdered the Archbishop ; they broke 
into the hospitals ; they maltreated the doctors, 
so that those of them who survived the assault 
fled from the city. Mistaking an Italian dancing- 
master for a doctor, they broke both his arms 
and both his legs, and flung him out into the 
street to die. The soldiers fled and the Governor 
retreated before them. It was obviously neces- 
sary to send a strong man to Moscow, to stay 
the plague if he could, and to restore order in 
any case. It was decided to send Gregory 
Orlof. 

Whether Catherine wished him to go because 
she was tired of being knocked about, or because 
she desired the uninterrupted society of his 
rival, is a matter of conjecture ; but the thought 
at the back of the brains of her ministers is 
clear. Most likely, they argued, Orlof would 
catch the plague and die of it ; and, even if 
he did not die, there was a very good chance 
that he would fail and be discredited. They 
had little faith in his competence, and they 
knew his habit of neglecting his duties. They 
expected him to return — if he did return — un- 
successful, to find another favourite installed 
in his place. In short, they planned his down- 
fall. 

But Gregory Orlof did not fail. Perhaps 
he guessed what his enemies were planning ; 

199 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



perhaps he did not need to guess, but realised 
that much was here at stake, for himself as 
well as for Russia. At all events, he pulled 
himself together, as an old athlete sometimes 
will when there is a sudden call on his energies 
after he has got out of training, and allowed 
himself to fall abroad. He dashed off, in- 
stalled himself in the plague- stricken town, took 
command of the situation, and issued edicts 
right and left ; and all the luck was on his 
side. He had the luck — for which his physician 
took the credit — to escape the contagion. If 
he did not actually stay the plague, he had 
the luck to be present when the plague, after 
carrying off 133,000 persons, was stayed by 
the coming on of the cold weather ; and when 
the death-rate dwindled, order practically re- 
stored itself. 

So he returned to St. Petersburg in a blaze 
of glory, passing through a triumphal arch 
bearing the inscriptions : " Orlof stayed the 
plague," and " Such sons has Russia " ; and 
Catherine's heart was once more his for a 
season. The interim favourite sank again into 
the obscurity from which he had been lifted, 
and Catherine wrote to Voltaire comparing 
Orlof to Quintus Curtius and other heroes of 
ancient Rome. Perhaps — though no precise in- 
formation is available — she even signified that 
she was proud to be knocked about by such 
a man ; for she had little of the pride of the 
purple in these matters, and was quite capable 
200 



INTRIGUES AGAINST ORLOF 



of taking the tone of Moliere's heroine : Et sHl 
me plait d'etre battu ? 

Still, Catherine was at the dangerous age, 
and Orlof had not learnt to be exclusive in 
his attachments, and his enemies were as 
jealous as ever, and showed no disposition to 
disarm. They took a petty revenge on the 
physician who claimed to have saved his life, 
keeping him waiting two years for a small 
indemnity for the loss of his clothes in quaran- 
tine, and telling him confidentially that his 
reward would have been much more prompt 
if he had been less careful of Orlof's health. 
They found a fresh excuse for removing Orlof 
from Court, gave him a fresh opportunity of 
making a mess of an important public service, 
while they brought other admirers to Catherine's 
notice during his absence. 

That is how he came to be sent to Fokchany, 
to negotiate a peace after the war with Turkey ; 
and this time he was sufficiently blinded by 
arrogance to play into his enemies' hands. 
Though Catherine sent him off in great style, 
with twenty-four liveried servants, in a sumptu- 
ous coach which is said to have cost a million 
roubles, he had the indiscretion to quarrel 
with her at the moment of his departure by 
proposing that one of her ladies-in-waiting 
should accompany him on his journey ; while, 
on his arrival at the seat of the negotiations, 
he comported himself with an insolence worthy 
of Brennus and the Gauls. He quarrelled with 

201 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



the Russian commander-in-chief, and threw a 
plate of jam in his face. He quarrelled with 
the Turkish plenipotentiary, and boxed his ears, 
saying, in reply to all remonstrances, that that 
was the only way of dealing satisfactorily with 
such people. Then, for no ostensible reason, he 
broke off the negotiations and retired to Jassy, 
where he swaggered about in a coat of many 
colours, embroidered with priceless diamonds. 

His enemies needed no more. Catherine 
was still attached to him. She was still prais- 
ing him, in letters to Mme de Bielke, as " the 
handsomest man of the day," and gushing 
over Nature's generosity to him in the matter 
of " good looks, intelligence, and heart, and 
soul." But it could be represented to her 
that such powerful subjects were a peril to 
sovereigns ; and seductive rivals could be sought 
out and introduced. The Comte de Manteuffel 
was proposed ; but he " preferred a simple 
and philosophic life to the glittering splendour 
of a corrupt Court," and fled to his estates 
in Livonia. Lieutenant Vasilchikof of the Horse 
Guards was more amenable. Baron de Solms, 
the Prussian Ambassador, reported his promo- 
tion to Frederick the Great — 

44 I have just seen this M. de Vasilchikof, 
and recognised him as a man whom I had 
often seen before at the Court, where he was 
lost in the crowd. He is of medium height, 
about twenty-eight years of age, of dark com- 
202 



VASILCHIKOF 

plexion, and tolerably good-looking. He has 
always been very polite towards everybody, 
gentle and timid in his manners, and he is so 
still. He gives one the impression of being 
embarrassed with the part which he is playing. 
The Court, on the whole, seems to disapprove 
of the affair. It causes a great to-do among 
the family and friends of Count Orlof, who 
are looking baffled, pensive, and dissatisfied. . . . 
The Empress is in the best of tempers, always 
gay and pleased with herself, and entirely 
given up to festivities and dissipations." 

A similar message was, at the same time, 
transmitted to Orlof by one of his friends ; and 
he conceived that this was a matter of much 
greater urgency than his public duties. He 
left the peace negotiations to look after them- 
selves, jumped into a carriage, and galloped 
the thousand leagues, galloping night and day, 
which separated him from St. Petersburg. He 
was expected and stopped — told that the quar- 
antine regulations forbade him to proceed 
farther at present, and invited to retire for a 
season to his estate at Gatchina. It was the 
estate which he had offered, at Catherine's 
suggestion, to place at the disposal of Rousseau 
on the ground that " the air is healthy, the 
water is good, and the hill- sides environing a 
number of lakes are eminently suitable for 
reveries," and that " there would be plenty of 
shooting and fishing." 

203 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 

Perhaps Orlof shot and fished — he certainly 
was in no mood to engage in philosophic con- 
templations, and walk " with inward glory 
crowned." Catherine was afraid that his re- 
veries would have violent ends, and caused a 
new lock to be placed on her new favourite's 
door, for the discomfiture of possible assassins ; 
but that was a superfluous precaution. When 
Orlof did get to St. Petersburg, and made the 
acquaintance of the new favourite, he was very 
polite to him, drove in the streets with him, and 
only quitted his society in order to engage in a 
drunken debauch. And, in the meantime, negotia- 
tions proceeded, almost as between potentates, 
concerning Orlof s future arrangements. 

They were negotiations of which the issue 
hung for some time in the balance. Vasilchikof 
was a weak man, though he had the old families 
of Russia for his backers. Orlof was a strong 
man, though he had influential enemies. More- 
over, Catherine's tenderness for Orlof had not 
been entirely killed by his bad treatment of 
her ; and her new passion for Vasilchikof was 
little more than a passing caprice. The situa- 
tion, therefore, was full of interesting possi- 
bilities, of which the discomfiture of the new 
favourite by the old one was not the least 
possible. In the end, as we shall see, it was 
solved by the advent of a third suitor — a suitor 
who was clever as well as strong ; but a good 
deal was to happen first, and we must pause 
to watch the vicissitudes of the struggle. 
204 



CHAPTER XVIII 



Marriage, Travels, Misfortunes, and Death of Gregory Orlof 

It was never Catherine's desire to disgrace the 
favourites whom she discarded. She preferred 
to regard them as superannuated functionaries 
who retired from the most dignified post in her 
Civil Service. She liked to honour them on 
the occasion of their retreat, and accord them 
magnificent retiring allowances. She cherished, 
and wished them to cherish, the most agreeable 
recollections of her favour, and saw no reason 
why those who had been her lovers should not 
stoop to become her friends. As a rule, they 
were willing to do so. 

Gregory Orlof s case, however, differed in 
some particulars from that of the others. His dis- 
missal was not entirely due to personal reasons, 
though personal reasons were factors in it, but 
was in part contrived by a cabal, jealous not 
of his privileges but of his influence. That is 
one side of the picture ; and the other side of 
it is coloured by his reluctance to accept his 
deposition. For ten years he had occupied 
the first place in Catherine's heart ; and pride 

205 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



forbade him to yield it, without a struggle, to 
another. He was not, indeed, a man to over- 
turn a throne because an Empress had proved 
untrue. Those enemies of his who feared that 
were alarmed by an imaginary danger. But he 
was a man to be indignant, to sulk, to spurn 
proffered consolations with scorn, to assume 
an air of injured innocence — to give, in short, 
all the trouble that he could, and lose no chance 
of making his mistress feel her cruelty. 

The rumour ran in diplomatic circles that a 
thousand soldiers were in his pay, and ready to 
do anything for him; that all the archbishops 
were ardent supporters of his suit ; that he had 
entered Catherine's palace in disguise at a 
masked ball, and that Catherine had fled for 
refuge to Panin's apartment. Durand reported 
those stories to his Government for what they 
might be worth ; and many other stories, 
equally circumstantial and more credible, have 
been preserved. 

Invited to resign his public offices, Gregory 
Orlof declined to do so, saying that if the Em- 
press wished to get rid of him, she must dismiss 
him. Offered permission to travel abroad for 
the benefit of his health, he replied that he was 
not complaining of his health, and needed 
neither medical treatment nor change of air. 
Threatened with imprisonment at Ropscha, he 
said that he would be delighted to entertain 
Catherine even there, if she would deign to visit 
him. Called upon to return the portrait, 
206 



FALL OF GREGORY ORLOF 



framed in diamonds, which Catherine had given 
him, he handed over the diamonds, but retained 
the portrait, saying that he would only restore 
it to the hand from which he had received it. 
When Catherine sent him a roll of gold coins 
fresh from the mint, he ostentatiously passed 
on her gift to his friend General Pohlmann. 

The incident was reported to Catherine in 
the expectation that she would resent it ; but 
she understood, and was melted to tenderness — 

" My God! Aren't you satisfied yet?" she 
is reported to have said. " You have achieved 
your end — you have banished him from my 
Court ; but you will never banish him from 
my heart. I am going to send him another 
and a more valuable present, which I hope he 
will receive with a better grace." 

And she sent him a service of silver plate 
and a draft for fifty thousand roubles — gifts 
which he did not throw back at her head. 
Evidently her heart looked back, even when 
her fancy strayed ; and presently she restored 
her favourite to offices of which she had deprived 
him, and his complete restoration to favour 
seemed probable. But it did not follow ; and 
Catherine is said thus to have announced her 
candid programme to a confidante — 

" I am under great obligations to the Orlof 
family. I have enriched and honoured them. 

207 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



I shall always protect them, and they may be 
very useful to me. But my mind is made up. 
I have put up with a great deal during the last 
eleven years ; and I wish now to live as I like, 
in entire independence. As for the Prince, he 
can do whatever he thinks good : travel, if he 
likes, or remain in Russia if he prefers — get 
drunk, go hunting, or keep mistresses." 

And Durand, who reports the confidence, 
adds as a character sketch of Orlof — 

" He is by nature a Russian peasant, and 
that is what he will remain until the end. He 
loves as indiscriminately as he eats, and can get 
on just as well with a Calmuck or a Finn as with 
a pretty woman of the Court. That is the sort 
of clown he is. Still, he has a certain natural 
intelligence, and means well. His great passion 
is avarice." 

That passion, at any rate, was gratified 
abundantly. Gregory Orlof s retiring pension 
was no less than a hundred and fifty thousand 
roubles ; and he was given, at the same time, 
the lump sum of one hundred thousand roubles, 
and an estate with six thousand serfs attached 
to it. Thus endowed, he accepted the suggestion 
that he should go abroad, the title of Prince of 
the Holy Roman Empire being bestowed upon 
him at last in order that he might cut a figure 
worthy of a deposed imperial favourite. A 
208 



FALL OF GREGORY ORLOF 



footnote in Caster a' s Life of Catherine gives us 
some idea of the sort of figure that he cut — 

" He appeared at Paris in a coat all the 
buttons whereof were large diamonds, and with 
a sword having the hilt also set with diamonds ; 
at Spa he quite eclipsed the Due de Chartres 
(since known under the names of Orleans and 
Egalite) and all the other princes there, and he 
played for such stakes as frightened the most 
intrepid gamesters. He afterwards made his 
appearance at Versailles at a ball given on 
occasion of the marriage of Madame Clotilde, 
dressed in a plain frock of coarse cloth." 

His first thought, that is to say, was to cut a 
dash, and his second to express his contempt 
for anyone who presumed to try to cut a greater 
dash. One is accustomed to hear such stories 
of the Belles Oteros and Lianes de Pougy of this 
world ; and it is with them that Gregory Orlof 
has, in the end, to be classed. 

His jaunt, however, was a brief one. At the 
end of a year we find him, after having reminded 
Diderot of " a caldron always on the boil but 
never cooking anything," back once more at St. 
Petersburg, and once more on very friendly, 
though not intimate, terms with Catherine. 
She gave him a palace — an additional palace, 
for she had already given him several ; and his 
return gift was the famous Nadir Shah diamond, 
for which he paid four hundred and sixty 
o 209 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



thousand roubles. It still looked as if he might, 
by such means, re-conquer (or re-purchase) his 
old position ; for Catherine was still writing of 
him (to Grimm) in terms of affectionate admira- 
tion as late as 1776 ; but there were difficulties 
too great to be surmounted — 

" Prince Orlof," reports Durand to his 
Government, " tells me that he has had a 
singular explanation with the Empress, and that 
he replied to her attempts to dissuade him from 
his plans of foreign travel by saying that he 
could no longer endure to see how his friends 
and relatives were being persecuted, though no 
complaint could be made against him except the 
lack of that vigour which Nature had ceased to 
vouchsafe to him." 

There may have been something in that, 
though Gregory Orlof was only forty-two. An 
endeavour to make love to the Empress and all 
her maids- of -honour simultaneously may have 
prematurely aged even a lover cast in his heroic 
mould. Moreover, his rival was now no longer 
Vasilchikof but Potemkin. A rival of no im- 
portance, that is to say, had been succeeded by 
a rival who would stand no nonsense, and was 
strong enough to bar the way effectively. He 
shall be introduced more formally, and with 
more particulars, in a moment. For the instant 
it suffices to note that the Orlofs themselves 
had presented him at the Court at which he was 
210 



FALL OF GREGORY ORLOF 



to supplant and succeed the favourite, and that 
Gregory, being supplanted, sought consolation 
elsewhere, and fell in love with, and married, his 
cousin, Mile Zinovief . 

Catherine, it seems, was not altogether 
pleased. She hankered, it appears, after 
Gregory Orlof s sighs, even when she preferred 
the ardour of a younger suitor ; desired the 
experience of being loved in vain, and felt that 
it behoved Gregory, as a loyal subject, at least 
to keep single for her sake. One infers as 
much, not unreasonably, from the fact that a 
decree of the Senate nullified his marriage on 
the ground that the bride and bridegroom 
were within the forbidden degrees. But then 
we see Catherine, her fit of resentment passed, 
changing her mind, and making a display of 
magnanimity, overruling the decree of the 
Senate, and sending Princess Orlof a golden 
toilet set as a wedding present. Bride and 
bridegroom went to Switzerland for their honey- 
moon, and were happy. 

But only for five short years. Princess 
Orlof was consumptive, and the malady made 
rapid progress. Her husband took her from 
place to place, to consult all the specialists of 
the day ; but the most learned specialists of 
that date knew nothing about consumption, 
and could therefore do nothing for their patient. 
Princess Dashkof met the wanderers at Leyden, 
and again at Brussels. She says that Orlof 
suggested to her that her son (then aged seven- 

211 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



teen) should aspire to the post of favourite 
from which he had retired ; but she was not a 
truthful person, and one does not know whether 
to believe her or not. However that may be, 
the Princess gradually wasted away until she 
died in 1782, and Gregory himself only survived 
her about six months. It is said that his 
enemies found a means of giving him a drug 
which deprived him of his reason ; but that is 
another of those stories, so frequent in Russian 
history, which cannot be proved and need not 
be accepted — 

" Though I had every reason to expect the 
painful event," wrote Catherine, conveying the 
news of his death to Grimm, " I assure you I 
am deeply afflicted by it. It is in vain that 
people repeat to me, and that I repeat to my- 
self, all the commonplaces proper to such occa- 
sions. Sobs are my only answers, and I am 
in a terrible state of distress." 

So that, in spite of all that had happened, 
something of the old tenderness remained. 



212 



CHAPTER XIX 



Gregory Poternkin — His Early Life — His Military Services — 
His Promotion to be Favourite in place of Vasilchikof 

Potemkin came from Smolensk, where he was 
born, of poor but noble parents, in or about 
1740. One of his great-uncles had been Peter 
the Great's Ambassador at the Court of St. 
James's ; his sisters married into the great 
families of Samoilof and Davidof ; but his 
father was an undistinguished officer, who saw 
no active service, and retired with the rank 
of major. He himself was intended for the 
priesthood, and was to that end sent to a 
theological college, where he became a model 
pupil, well versed in his liturgy. 

In this character of model pupil, well versed 
in the liturgy, he was, together with other 
model pupils, sent, at the public cost, to St. 
Petersburg, to be "inspected." He did not 
dazzle St. Petersburg, but St. Petersburg 
dazzled him. It was borne in upon him, at 
the frivolous Court of Elizabeth, that theology 
was not the whole of life, or even three-parts 
of life, but only one of life's minor issues. On 
his return to his theological college, he treated 

213 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



his studies with such contempt that his pre- 
ceptors expelled him as "an idler who cut his 
lectures." Retiring, he obtained permission to 
enlist in the Horse Guards ; and that was 
where the outbreak of Catherine's revolution 
found him. 

It was a revolution, as we have seen, 
made by subalterns, with the countenance and 
connivance of Panin and one or two other 
Elder Statesmen ; and the subalterns forced the 
hands of the Elder Statesmen by proclaiming 
Catherine Empress instead of putting her for- 
ward merely as Regent during the minority of 
the Grand Duke Paul. Potemkin held only 
non-commissioned rank at the time, but he 
nevertheless contrived to make himself helpful 
and prominent. It is said to have been he 
who disconcerted the Elder Statesmen by 
raising the cry : " Long live Catherine, Empress 
of All the Russias ! " first in the barrack yard 
and then again in the Kazan church. It 
is also said that Catherine wore a cockade 
torn from his cap when she took the field 
against her husband. He was, at any rate, 
one of her personal escort on that occasion, 
and was with Gregory Orlof at Oranienbaum 
when Peter in. signed the Act of Abdication, 
and rode with the carriage which conveyed 
Peter to his prison at Ropscha. His reward 
was the grade of second lieutenant, and a Court 
sinecure, carrying with it a pension of two 
thousand roubles. The fact that he was first 
214 



POTEMKIN 



proposed for the rank of cornet only, and that 
Catherine herself declared the promotion in- 
adequate, shows that she had remarked him, 
and did not accept him merely at the Orlofs' 
valuation. 

Somehow or other, he was granted ad- 
mission into that inner circle in which the 
Empress unbent, and permitted her male 
friends to call her by her Christian name. It is 
said that the Orlofs themselves presented him as 
a buffoon with a remarkable turn for mimickry 
— the very thing to beguile an idle hour. It is 
also said that he mimicked the Empress to her 
face, to her intense amusement, and that she 
thereupon granted him permission to call her 
Catherine, like the others. It is added that the 
Orlofs soon became jealous of their protege, 
observing that the Empress permitted him to 
squeeze her hand in the course of parlour 
games ; that they picked a quarrel with him 
in the billiard-room, and that the unconscion- 
able Alexis knocked his eye out with the cue. 
The fact that he lost one of his eyes somewhere, 
in a rough-and-tumble with somebody, is, at any 
rate, well established. 

Beyond that, however, one knows very 
little about his early life, and can add but few 
touches to the picture of him as a young man 
who hung about the Court, calling the Empress 
by her Christian name, and earning his bread 
by his buffooneries, while awaiting his turn 
for preferment. It has been said that he made 

215 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 

a bid for preferment by assisting at the death 
of Peter iii. ; but that he always strenuously 
denied. There is probably more truth in 
the statement that Catherine prepared him for 
preferment by appointing a French nobleman 
as his tutor, and placing him in a Government 
office, to familiarise him with public affairs. 
That was the sort of thing she liked to 
do ; and Potemkin, unlike Gregory Orlof, was 
both young enough and far-sighted enough to 
let her do it. Buffoon or not, he must have 
been recognisable as a young man who would 
make his way ; though it was not until the 
outbreak of the Turkish war, in 1768, that he 
began to emerge. 

His rank was only that of captain when he 
went to the front with a special recommenda- 
tion to Romanzof. Within a few months we 
find him promoted to be a major-general " on 
account of his courage and the great military 
abilities which he has displayed on all occasions." 
What he had actually done to merit the pro- 
motion is not clear. The theory that the 
commander-in-chief, reading between the lines 
of Catherine's letter of recommendation, and 
divining that the young captain might be a 
useful friend at Court, put him in the way of 
winning distinctions without incurring perils, 
is more plausible than any other ; but there 
is also the theory that he acted as a Court spy 
at the military headquarters, and sent home 
secret reports to the detriment of his superiors. 
216 



POTEMKIN 



His successes, at any rate, were rather like 
a flash in the pan. From the end of 1769 
until the middle of 1773 we hear practically 
nothing of him ; and Laveaux writes that 
" he spent all his time in his dressing-gown, 
with the air of a man wrapped in profound 
reflection." 

It seems a queer uniform, and also a queer 
occupation, for a major-general on active ser- 
vice ; but everything was possible in the mili- 
tary Russia of that date, and we are not entitled 
to be more than mildly sceptical. The com- 
mander-in-chief may very possibly have pre- 
ferred the coadjutor who sulked in flowing silks 
to that other, more haughty, coadjutor who 
pelted him with jam ; and it is, at any rate, 
pleasant to picture him balancing their com- 
parative claims to his affection and regard. 
Whatever his choice, however, Catherine had 
made hers ; and the major-general in the 
dressing-gown was presently cheered by the 
receipt of a letter in her handwriting. 

" My dear lieutenant-general," she began, 
thus signifying his elevation to a higher grade ; 
and she went on — 

" I suppose you are too busy with your 
duties in Silistria to have time to read letters. 
I do not know how you are getting on with 
your bombardment ; but I am quite sure that 
your activities are due to personal loyalty to 
myself, and to that dear fatherland which you 

217 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



delight to serve. Still, as I should be very 
sorry to lose the services of any man of zeal, 
courage, intelligence, and ability, I implore you 
not to expose yourself to unnecessary danger. 
Perhaps, when you have read this letter, you 
will wonder why I wrote it. Then I will tell 
you. It was in order to let you know how 
highly I think of you, and how sincerely I am 
your well-wisher." 

Though the letter said but little, it obviously 
meant more than it said. Potemkin, as was 
natural, was startled by it out of his dressing- 
gown into his uniform — startled into demand- 
ing leave of absence and setting out on a journey 
which could not very well be accomplished in 
a dressing-gown. By the middle of January 
1774 he was back in St. Petersburg, after 
travelling with a haste equal to Orlof's, when 
the news reached him of the favours bestowed, 
in his absence, on Vasilchikof ; but, as to the 
next scene in the comedy, more than one story 
is told. 

Some writers lay that scene in a monastery. 
They say that Potemkin posed as the incon- 
solable lover, resolved to shave his head, re- 
nounce his uniform (and his dressing-gown) for 
a cowl, and exchange the pomp and vanity of 
this wicked world for the pious seclusion of the 
cloister, because he feared that he had fixed 
his hopes upon unattainable satisfactions. They 
add that Catherine sent her confidante, the 
218 



POTEMKIN 

Countess Bruce, to him in his retreat with a 
reassuring message to the effect that he need 
not despair ; that the Countess Bruce returned 
with the report that love had driven him mad ; 
that Catherine herself then went to the monas- 
tery and declared her love; that Potemkin 
only consented to accept her love on condition 
that she would give him a rank so exalted that 
the ridicule of the Court could not affect him ; 
that Catherine agreed to his terms. 

Things may have happened so — the negative 
cannot be proved ; but there is more proba- 
bility in the story that Potemkin himself 
made a written application for the grade of 
" general aide-de-camp " — the titular military 
status of the imperial favourites. In any case, 
whether he sought the honour openly, or so 
manoeuvred that it was thrust upon him, he 
obtained it, and entered at once on his new 
duties. One may give Castera's picture of 
those duties — or rather of that portion of them 
which outsiders were privileged to observe — 

" When Her Majesty had fixed her choice 
on a new favourite," we read, " she created 
him her general aide-de-camp, in order that 
he might accompany her everywhere without 
attracting reproach or inviting observation. 
Thenceforward the favourite occupied in the 
Palace an apartment beneath that of the Em- 
press, to which it communicated by a private 
staircase. The first day of his installation, he 

219 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



received a present of a hundred thousand 
roubles, and every month he found twelve 
thousand on his dressing-table. The marshal 
of the Court was commissioned to provide him 
a table of twenty-four covers, and to defray all 
the expenses of his household. The favourite 
attended the Empress on all parties of amuse- 
ment, at the opera, at balls, promenades, ex- 
cursions of pleasure, and the like, and was not 
allowed to leave the Palace without express 
permission. He was given to understand that 
it would not be taken well if he conversed 
familiarly with other women ; and if he went 
to dine with any of his friends, the mistress of 
the house was always absent. ... It was on 
the selection of Potemkin that these formalities 
began ; and since that time they have been 
constantly observed." 

The favourite, that is to say, lived in a 
cage, though the cage was generously gilded. 
Discontent with the restrictions of the cage 
was unquestionably a factor in the abbreviation 
of more than one liaison, and it can hardly 
have been without its bearing on the develop- 
ment of Potemkin' s own position. We will 
consider that question, however, in a later 
place. Before coming to it, we have to see 
what the world said about the new man and 
the new situation. 

The Empress herself reported the change 
in what we may fairly call a lettre de faire part, 
220 



POTEMKIN 



addressed to Grimm, who had presumed to 
remonstrate with her on the versatility of 
her temper — 

" Why do you say this ? " she asked. 66 1 
will lay a wager that I know. It is because 
I have got rid of a certain excellent, but very 
tiresome, citizen, whose place was immediately 
taken — I really can hardly tell you how — 
by one of the greatest, most droll, and most 
amusing originals of this age of iron. Ah 
me ! What a head my new friend has ! He 
had more than anyone else to do with the con- 
clusion of the Peace, and he is as good company 
as the Devil." 

That is how she announced the dismissal 
of Vasilchikof, who had been sent to Moscow, 
where he passes out of our story — 1,100,000 
roubles to the good. Already, it will be seen, 
she recognised not only Potemkin's social 
qualities, but also his strength of character. 
In diplomatic circles, also, it was felt that the 
new favourite would have to be taken more 
seriously than the favourite who had been asked 
to retire. Durand, indeed, depreciated him, 
reporting to Versailles that his conduct during 
the war had scandalised the Turks and excited 
the derision of the Russians — which, indeed, is 
not unlikely if it be true that he spent two years 
and a half on active service in his dressing-gown ; 
but Gunning, the British Charge d'Affaires, 

221 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



while speaking of his huge, ungainly form 
and disagreeable physiognomy, added that " he 
seems to have more sense than the majority 
of the Russians," and " may reasonably hope, 
thanks to his own qualities and the indolence 
of his rivals, to reach the heights to which 
his limitless ambition aspires ; " while Vasilchi- 
kof himself admitted, in a burst of confidence 
which reached the Embassies, that Potemkin 
altogether outclassed him — 

" He stands," he said, " on a very different 
footing from me. I was only in the position 
of a kept woman. That is how I was treated. 
I was never allowed to see anybody, or to go 
out alone. When I asked a favour, I got no 
answer, whether the favour was for myself 
or for others. Thinking I should like the 
cordon of St. Anne, I asked the Empress for 
it ; and, on the following morning, when I 
put my hand in my pocket, I found — notes 
to the value of thirty thousand roubles. She 
always shut my mouth like that, and sent 
me to my room. Potemkin, on the contrary, 
gets whatever he chooses to ask for. He 
simply dictates his wishes. He is the master." 

A generous testimonial truly from a defeated 
to a triumphant rival ; but one suspects that 
Vasilchikof was rather glad than otherwise to 
be asked to go. We have read that he ap- 
peared to be embarrassed by his part; there 
222 



POTEMKIN 

is no record of his having appeared to be em- 
barrassed by the 1,100,000 roubles which he 
received for playing it. Potemkin's rise, indeed, 
was far more annoying to Orlof than to him, 
though the affability of their intercourse sur- 
prised the corps diplomatique. They met one 
day, we are told, on the grand staircase of the 
Palace, and exchanged civil words — 

" What is the Court news ? " 

" I know of none except that you are going 
upstairs, and I am coming down." 

That is all that one knows to have passed 
between them. They waved each other a 
courteous farewell, and went their several ways. 
Orlof, as we have already seen, departed on his 
travels, returned to marry, and then travelled 
again, pursuing the vain quest of a physician 
who could cure his young wife of the disease 
which was killing her. He never ceased to 
be a person of great social influence and con- 
sideration ; but he now passes out of our story, 
leaving Potemkin free to follow the promptings 
of his inordinate ambition, and make more 
of the office of favourite than any of his pre- 
decessors had ever contrived to make of it. 



223 



CHAPTER XX 



Potemkin's Inordinate Ambitions — His Desire to Marry 
Catherine — His Retention of his Public Offices after 
ceasing to be Favourite — Rise and Fall of Zavadovski 

Potemkin's ambition was nothing less than 
to govern Russia — and to be seen governing it. 
From first to last he was far more anxious to 
rule the Empire than to embrace the Empress. 
It may be an exaggeration to say that he only 
embraced the Empress as a means towards 
ruling the Empire ; but it is the sort of exaggera- 
tion which is more illuminating than the truth. 
He wanted to multiply and monopolise offices, 
to stuff his pockets with roubles, to have vast 
armies of serfs tilling the soil for his profit, 
and to see his breast spangled with the stars, 
crosses, and ribbons of all the European Orders 
of Chivalry. 

On the whole, he got what he wanted. His 
serfs were like the sands of the seashore for 
multitude, and the number of his roubles was 
fifty millions. A seat in the Privy Council and 
the office of Minister of War were his almost 
at once. Other offices, both military and civil, 
fell to him as he desired them ; and it was 
224 



POTEMKIN 



much the same with the Orders — though there 
were exceptions. When he asked for the Garter, 
he found that he might as well have asked 
for the moon ; for though there may be " no 

d d nonsense about merit " in connection 

with the Garter, it is not a distinction avail- 
able for the paramours of Empresses. When he 
asked for the Golden Fleece, he was met with 
an equally firm non possumus, on the ground 
that the Golden Fleece was only for Catholics. 
But the King of Prussia gave him the Order 
of the Black Eagle, the King of Denmark 
the Order of the Elephant, and the King of 
Sweden the Order of the Seraphim ; the Em- 
peror of Austria made him, as he had made 
Orlof , a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire ; 
and Catherine gave him, as she had given 
Orlof, permission to wear her portrait, set in 
diamonds, in his buttonhole. "I do not," 
wrote the French Attache, M. de Corberon, 
to his brother, " like this outward and visible 
sign of a favour which ought only to be sus- 
pected"; but Potemkin was a man who set 
great store by the visible signs of his advance- 
ment. 

It must be added, however, that he obtained 
them by insistence, and not by cajolery. Since 
he was Catherine's lover, she must be assumed 
to have been in love with him ; but his appear- 
ance and manners, in so far as we have been 
made acquainted with them, were by no means 
those of a squire of dames. He was one-eyed, 
P 225 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



as has been said ; and with his one eye he 
squinted. He was bow-legged, and had the 
habit of biting his nails. He swilled kvass and 
ate garlic. He frequently forgot, for days to- 
gether, to brush his hair or wash his face ; 
and he slopped about in a dressing-gown and 
slippers — not even wearing trousers underneath 
the dressing-gown ; and he gave audience to 
notables — and even to fashionable ladies — in 
that incomplete attire. Decidedly, he was not 
a decorative lover — a fact to which he himself 
bore silent testimony by his reluctance to have 
his portrait painted ; and we shall find it difficult, 
as we proceed, to infer any special beauty of 
character from the records of his conduct. But 
he was a strong man ; and Catherine, great as 
she was, had many feminine traits. As, in the 
past, she had allowed herself to be knocked 
about by Orlof, so now she allowed herself to 
be ordered about by Potemkin. He was so 
encouraged that he presumed, even as Orlof 
had done, to persuade her to try to bestow 
her hand where she had already bestowed her 
heart. 

His method of procedure, however, was 
different from Orlof's. Whereas Orlof had had 
backers, Potemkin acted for himself ; and where- 
as Orlof had relied upon political considera- 
tions, Potemkin' s trump card was religious — 
as perhaps was natural in the case of a man 
educated in a theological college. He induced 
Catherine to accompany him on a pilgrimage 
226 



POTEMKIN 



to the monastery of Troitza, near Moscow ; and 
he contrived that Panin — whose opposition he, 
like Orlof, feared — should not be of the party. 
That done — and Panin, being now fatter than 
ever, was left behind without difficulty — he set 
his scene and played his comedy, with the help 
of the monks, who, in view of his early ecclesi- 
astical associations, were his cordial supporters 
to a man. 

As the curtain rises, Catherine is discovered 
alone — whether engaged in prayer or awaiting 
the homage of the fathers does not matter. To 
her presently there enter shaven monks, with 
words of pious remonstrance on their lips. Some 
of them implore, and others threaten ; but the 
burden of menace and entreaty is the same. 
The Empress, they take leave to say, — may they 
be forgiven for saying it ! but it is their duty 
to her and to the Church, — is living in open sin. 
The thing is a scandal, a stumbling-block, a 
rock of offence in Russia. The Church cannot 
approve of a union which the Church has not 
been called upon to bless. The Autocrat of 
All the Russias, though the Head of the Church, 
is not above its laws. Like the humblest of her 
subjects, she must marry (or separate from her 
lover) if she does not wish to burn. Let her 
take heed, while it is yet time ! Let her reflect ! 

And so on and so forth, with the audacity 
of admonition of which privileged ecclesiastics 
are sometimes capable, until the door opened 
yet again, and Potemkin entered — quantum 

227 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



mutatus ab Mo ! Not in his gay uniform, glitter- 
ing with decorations ; not even in his gay dress- 
ing-gown of flowing silks; but in the dark, 
monastic garb. His head was not yet shaven 
— and very likely his hair was, as usual, long 
and tousled — but he was, at least, a monk in 
the making, if not yet a monk fully made ; and 
the words on his lips were the words of pious 
resignation. The Holy Father Superior, he 
said, had spoken to him, and convinced him of 
sin. It had been brought home to him that 
the life which he was living was a continual 
affront to God. He would not — could not — 
continue it, but must repent, in sackcloth and 
ashes, and make amends. Marriage, of course, 
would be a sufficient reparation of his heinous 
fault ; but he supposed it was impossible. If 
so — if the Empress would not make him an honest 
man — then the only way was for him to make 
himself a holy man, resigning his worldly pros- 
pects, joining his friends the monks, taking the 
vow of celibacy, and devoting the remainder of 
his allotted span of life to prayer and meditation. 

It was a bold stroke, and — the fat Panin 
being out of the way — there was a chance that 
it might succeed. Catherine was not a religious 
woman ; but she knew for how much religion 
counted in Russia, and what support it could 
give to any cause or proceeding. Moreover, the 
convent provided every facility for a wedding 
service, and she had acquired the habit of 
doing as Potemkin told her. If she had been 
228 



POTEMKIN 



seeking an excuse for weakness, she could have 
found all the excuses that she wanted. But 
she was not seeking one. 

Perhaps, though she did not mind being 
bullied, she did not like being jockeyed. Perhaps 
she was still afraid of Panin, who certainly was 
not afraid of her. Perhaps she was beginning 
to realise the mutability of her own restless 
heart. Perhaps, after all, she was repelled 
by the conception of a one-eyed major-general, 
unkempt and redolent of garlic, slopping about 
the Palace in a dressing-gown and slippers, or 
squinting at her across her boudoir table, for the 
remainder of her life. Perhaps, again, Potemkin 
had postponed his comedy too long ; so that 
Catherine's eyes had already begun to roam, 
and her fancy to follow her eyes, and her heart 
to follow her fancy. Perhaps she had already 
begun to be sensible of the charms of Zava- 
dovski. Whatever her motives, she made it 
clear that, if comedies were to be played, her 
own gifts as a comedienne must be reckoned 
with. So she listened to Potemkin, as she had 
listened to the priests, and waited for her cue, 
and took it up ; but she said nothing about 
marriage, confining her remarks to religion and 
its obligations. 

Of course, she said, religion must come 
first. Her respect for religion had always been 
profound. Far be it from her, therefore, to 
urge a religious man to- ignore the promptings 
of his conscience ! If Potemkin felt as he said, 

229 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



then it was only right and proper that he should 
act as he proposed. The case was a sad one — 
equally sad for both of them ; but sin was sin, 
and duty was duty, all the same. She would 
weep, but she would submit, resigning her lover 
into the arms of Mother Church, rejoicing to 
think that she had only a spiritual rival in his 
heart. Since God called him, there was nothing 
for it but that he should obey the call. 

Such was her answer : and it was not at all 
the answer that Potemkin had expected. Still, 
he had invited it, or at least laid himself open 
to it ; so that no effective rejoinder was possible. 
He had been taken at his word, and he could not 
complain. Catherine bade him an affectionate 
and dignified farewell, and left him using 
language most inappropriate to the holy garb 
he had adopted. He cursed and swore. He 
threatened to become an Archbishop, but he 
thought better of the threat ; and it is an open 
question whether he withdrew from the office 
of favourite on his own motion, or because 
Catherine signified her wish that he should do 
so. By acting as favourite for a season, he had 
driven in what Sainte-Beuve has called the 
clou oVor oVamitie ; and it may be that that 
sufficed for him. He certainly was not the man 
to accept the restrictions which Catherine liked 
to impose upon her favourites ; and his aim 
seems to have been to continue to exploit his 
Empress while ceasing to embrace her — to give 
himself a grievance, and then to demand com- 
230 



ZAVADOVSKI 



pensation. The story that he so manoeuvred, 
by feigning illness, as to be supplanted without 
giving offence, is credible, and may be accepted. 

In any case, he was supplanted ; and if it 
suited him better to jilt than to be jilted, he got 
his way. Whether Catherine gave him a rival 
during his absence in the provinces or during 
his presence in the capital is not quite clear ; 
but he presently found Zavadovski installed 
in the apartment which he had been privileged 
to occupy, and he handled the situation like a 
man of genius — very differently from the manner 
in which Orlof had handled the situation created 
by the preferment of Vasilchikof . 

He knew Catherine well enough not to be 
afraid of disobeying her ; and he had taken 
Zavadovski' s measure. He recognised him as 
an Adonis of no particular importance, qualified, 
by his knowledge of languages, for the position 
which he held as Catherine's secretary, but not 
a man likely to wield influence, or capable of 
browbeating opposition. If there was brow- 
beating to be done, it was Potemkin. with his 
one eye and savage squint, who would carry off 
the honour of the contest. So he set to work. 
Catherine sent him a message that he had better 
travel for the benefit of his health ; but he 
declined to budge. On the contrary, he repaired 
to the Court, and sat down at Catherine's card- 
table ; and she overlooked his disobedience, and 
let him join the game. Later, he got his chance 
of talking to her ; and then he made vigorous 

231 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



representations, bellowing at her with his deep 
voice like an infuriated bull. 

So she wished to discard him — very well. 
So she had introduced her secretary into his 
apartments like a thief in the night — no matter. 
Her heart was her own, and she was free to 
dispose of it as she liked — he was making no 
grievance about that. But he was not, like the 
others, a mere paramour to beguile her idle 
hours — he had rights and claims which must not 
be treated so cavalierly. He was a general, a 
Minister of State, a Prince of the Holy Roman 
Empire — he could be a formidable enemy and 
a useful friend. Did Catherine think her throne 
so well established that she had no need of him ? 
If so, she was very much mistaken. There were 
cabals. There was an Orlof faction ; there was 
a Panin faction ; there were those who wished 
to depose her in favour of the Grand Duke Paul. 
Did she feel safe ? Did she regard Zavadovski 
as a sufficient tower of strength against those 
intrigues ? Was not a friend, whose interests 
were her own, even more necessary to her than 
a lover ? — especially if that friend might, 
supposing his friendship to be rejected, become 
an enemy ? If she wanted her pleasures, she 
must have them — it was no part of his duty to 
interfere ; but she must not mistake the ministers 
of her pleasures for statesmen, or push aside, 
in the interest of handsome young secretaries or 
subalterns, the men who were really capable of 
ruling Russia. 
232 



ZAVADOVSKI 



Thus Potemkin thundered, and Catherine 
trembled before him. She did not presume to 
reproach him with inconsistency, or to remind 
him of what he had so lately said about the 
awful consequences of living in open sin. It was 
quite recognised between them that that talk 
belonged to a comedy which had failed and 
need not be referred to. Potemkin proposed to 
have his pleasures, while leaving Catherine hers, 
and to continue to live, while also letting her 
continue to live, the life which he had professed 
to find so revolting to his naturally pious inclina- 
tions. But he also proposed to rule Russia, 
and to rule Catherine, even to the extent of 
appointing himself the director of her pleasures, 
exercising a veto on its instruments, and keep- 
ing a panel of favourites from which she might 
make her selection. 

And he got his way by the sheer display of 
brutal power, and exercised a far wider and 
deeper influence in his new position than in his 
old one. For years he was practically Dictator 
of Russia, and Catherine was like a child in 
his hands — albeit a child who sometimes gave 
him trouble. He said, among other things, — 
smashing glass and china with his emphatic 
gestures, — that, just as Vasilchikof had gone, 
so now Zavadovski must go ; and Zavadovski 
went — the number of roubles which he took 
with him being 1,380,000. 



233 



CHAPTER XXI 



M. de Corberon at St. Petersburg — His Reports on the 
Favourites — Zavado vski — K orsakof — Z oritch 

About Zavadovski there is little to be said 
(beyond what has been said already) except 
that he was a Ukranian and the son of a 
clergyman, and was succeeded in his office 
by Lieutenant Zoritch. About Zoritch, again, 
there is little to be related except that he was 
Potemkin's nominee, and went about saying 
that Potemkin had charged him one hundred 
thousand roubles for the introduction. It 
would have been worth his while to pay an 
even larger sum, for he did better than either 
his predecessor or Vasilchikof . His emoluments, 
though he only held office for about a twelve- 
month, were no less than 1,420,000 roubles. 

Apparently he was of the type of Zavadovski 
— " only more so " ; an Adonis, like Zava- 
dovski, but more empty-headed, and without 
Zavadovski's knowledge of languages and 
secretarial aptitudes. Potemkin, it is said, al- 
ways put forward a fool for the post of favourite 
in preference to a man of ability. The Empress, 
he knew, did not suffer fools gladly, even 
234 



M. DE CORBERON 

when she admired their good looks. Their 
folly was a stimulus to her mutability ; and 
her mutability suited Potemkin's plans. He 
could always have a new fool ready to take an 
old fool's place. When the office of favourite 
was filled by a rapid succession of fools, it 
would be stripped of political importance, and 
he, the maker of favourites, would be greater 
than any of them, and would rule Russia 
either through them or in spite of them. 
Catherine, he had realised, liked to be ruled 
by a strong man, though she preferred to renew 
her youth by smiling upon handsome young 
subalterns and secretaries. So he put forward 
Zoritch, as we have seen ; and after Zoritch 
he proposed Korsakof, and then Lanskoi, and 
Yermolof , and Mamonof — all of them men 
whom he could flick out of his way if they 
crossed the path of his ambition. It was a 
period of quick changes in Catherine's heart, 
succeeding to the period of long fidelities — 
not altogether uncoloured by sentiment, as 
the course of the narrative will show, but on 
the whole, perhaps, lending itself rather better 
to the jests of the smoking-room than to 
ecstatic contemplation of the dme sensible. 

It was towards the beginning of this period 
that the Chevalier de Corberon came to St. 
Petersburg, where he was attached to the 
Embassy of the Marquis de Juigne, and acted 
for some time as French Charge d'Affaires. 
He has already been mentioned as the diplo- 

235 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



matist who was reprimanded by his Govern- 
ment for filling his dispatches with smoking- 
room stories about the Empress and her 
admirers, to the exclusion of matters of politi- 
cal importance. It may be urged in his defence 
that he was very young ; that the things which 
he saw and heard at the Court of St. Petersburg 
struck him as very strange ; and that it was not 
unnatural for him to suppose that the French 
Foreign Office would wish to be informed of 
them. So he looked in through that window 
on the Neva to which we have so often had 
occasion to refer, and surveyed what he saw 
from the point of view of a man of the world 
who was not yet old enough or experienced 
enough to be blase. The fruits of his observa- 
tions are set forth not only in his dispatches, 
but also in his Diary and private correspondence, 
which have been published ; and though his 
specific statements on matters of fact are 
sometimes inaccurate, a good deal of value 
attaches to the picturesque impressions of his 
alert and nimble mind. 

He represented, at seven-and-twenty, the 
intellectual aristocracy of the ancien regime. 
He also represented the gaiety, the gallantry — 
and even the sensibility — of his age and nation. 
Above all things, the Chevalier was dme sensible, 
and he was proud of it ; but he was dme sensible 
in strict accordance with the manners and tone 
of good society. His friends opened their 
hearts to him, and he opened his to them — 
236 



M. DE CORBERON 

sometimes with a surprising candour. He was 
always in love, but generally in love with more 
than one woman at the same time. In France 
he had left her whom he speaks of as La 
Preferee — whom he would have married if he 
had not been too poor, and whom he still hoped 
to marry when fortune smiled on him. His 
letters are full of protestations that, though 
he roams through pleasures and palaces, he 
will never forget La Preferee, but will be faithful 
to her in his fashion. Only his fashion is — his 
fashion. It includes a great deal of roaming 
through palaces and pleasures, and permits of 
the life of the butterfly, flitting from flower 
to flower, and sipping sweets from each. The 
smiles of women, the Chevalier protests, are in- 
dispensable to his heart. Though they mean 
but little to him, he cannot do without them. 
So he begins with a gallant adventure in a 
hotel on his way to Russia, and proceeds to 
lay siege to the hearts of maids-of -honour — 
an attack the more exciting because he finds 
them carefully shielded from temptation on 
account of a recent scandalous affair between 
one of their number and one of his British 
colleagues. 

It is nothing, he repeats. These affairs are 
not serious — he seeks no serious affairs. La 
Preferee always has, and always will have, 
the first place in his heart — other women only 
please him in so far as they remind him of her. 
And no doubt he meant what he said, but the 

237 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



time nevertheless came when he ceased to say 
it because he had ceased to mean it — because, 
in short, the inevitable had happened. The 
affair with " the little Narishkin " was only a 
flash in the pan. The affair with Princess 
Trubetskoi (aged nineteen) was not much more. 
One might make a list of other affairs and say 
the same about them. But when Normandez, 
the Spanish Minister, introduced him at the 
house of Behmer, the German merchant, the 
fate of his heart was sealed. Behmer had a 
daughter, Charlotte ; and the Chevalier had 
only seen her a few times when he was head- 
over-ears in love — and your le bon motif. La 
P referee was forgotten, and Charlotte's praises 
were sung in letter after letter. " I have the 
good fortune," the Chevalier wrote, "to be 
loved in the German style — that is to say, 
frankly, and without affectations." So he gave 
up gallantry for sentiment, and courted Charlotte 
in the simple manner of any susceptible young 
man of the middle classes, and betrothed himself 
to her, and, after a long engagement, married 
her. 

That is his story : and, of course, it does not 
really concern us ; but one glances at it, before 
quoting the Chevalier's criticisms of the Court of 
Catherine the Great, because of the light which 
it throws upon his normal attitude towards 
the affairs of the heart. He was, we see, no 
cynic, but a man of sentiment, disposed to take 
all sincere affections seriously, but, at the same 
238 



M. DE CORBERON 



time, sufficiently a man of the world to be in 
no danger of mistaking a comedy for either a 
tragedy or an idyll. A friend who came to him 
with a tale of true love, whether returned or un- 
reciprocated, was always sure of a sympathetic 
hearing ; but the spectacle of the proceedings 
at Catherine's Court impressed him merely as 
a comedy performed for his diversion. In 
some respects, he did her an injustice ; but, 
though there were some things which he did 
not understand, — the inwardness of Potemkin's 
evacuation of his office, for example,— he was, 
on the whole, an intelligent, as well as an amused, 
observer — 

" My friend, I have seen the new favourite, 
whose name is Zavadovski, the private secre- 
tary. He is better-looking than Potemkin ; and, 
as for the essentials of his post, he possesses 
them in an eminent degree. Still, though his 
talents were put to the test at Moscow, his 
preferment is not definitely decided upon. . . . 
I am inclined to think that Zavadovski will 
only gratify a passing fancy." 

So the Chevalier begins in February 1776. 
By April he has realised that the new favourite 
has, indeed, got his appointment, but that the 
appointment seems likely to carry less distinction 
than of old — 

" OrJof is regarded by Catherine as her 
faithful friend ; but, as he desires no other place 

239 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



in her heart, and as this sovereign cannot dis- 
pense with a lover, Zavadovski will take that 
position. They tell me, however, that he will 
have no authority — if the Empress can, in fact, 
withhold authority from the man who dominates 
her in that capacity." 

Then, a little later, comes the rumour that 
Zavadovski is to be asked to retire — 

" His successor is to be Besbrodof — a 
Ukranian colonel — oVune taille, oVune force, aVune 
vigueur ! — II merite son jposte" 

That, however, was a false alarm. Zava- 
dovski was still in favour in June, on the 19th 
of which month the Chevalier writes — 

" I hear that Zavadovski, who has been a 
sort of subordinate favourite of the Empress, 
has received from her Majesty 50,000 roubles, 
a pension of 5000 roubles, and 4000 peasants, 
in Ukrania, where peasants are valuable. You 
will allow, my friend, that the metier is a profit- 
able one in this part of the world." 

And then Zavadovski is bowed out, and 
Zoritch is bowed in — 

" This favourite (Potemkin), who is in a 
stronger position than ever, and plays here the 
part which the Pompadour played towards the 
end of the life of Louis xv., has introduced 
a certain Zoritch, who has been promoted 
240 



ZORITCH 



lieutenant-generai %nd Inspector of Light In- 
fantry. I am told chat he has been given 
1800 peasants for his coup d'essai." 

Zoritch, however, has no history beyond the 
fact that he pocketed 1,420,000 roubles and was 
succeeded by Korsakof ; and Korsakof, in his 
turn, has very little history beyond the fact 
that he pocketed 920,000 roubles, and was suc- 
ceeded by Lanskoi. 

He was quite a common man, — a sergeant in 
a regiment of hussars, — picked out, of course, 
by Potemkin, who held that, the lower the lover's 
degree, the less likely was he to thwart his own 
ambitions. His real name was Korsak ; but his 
protectors lengthened it to Korsakof, on the 
assumption that the extended appellative had 
a nobler ring, and would seem worthier of im- 
perial gifts and favours. The one thing quite 
certain about him is that, while he was hand- 
some enough to please Catherine, he was also 
fool enough to please Potemkin : " the very 
type of a noodle," writes the Chevalier — " a 
noodle of the most degraded kind, such as we 
should not tolerate in France." It is also re- 
corded that he had a tenor voice — a wonderful 
instrument of music — and that Catherine tried 
to educate him. 

She had previously tried to educate Zoritch, 
— not altogether without success, — lecturing to 
him as they paced the Palace gardens, and find- 
ing him an attentive, if not a particularly able, 
Q 241 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



scholar. The Chevalier tells us that she boasted 
of his aptitude for learning ; and Zoritch him- 
self, in after years, when he had retired, to live 
on his savings in his country seat, confided 
to his friends that he had been a boor before 
his good lady — sa dame — took him in hand, 
but that she had formed him, and made him 
the polished gentleman that he was. Korsakof, 
however, was less intelligently receptive, as a 
well-known anecdote attests. Catherine one 
day sent him a number of books, together with 
a command to read them. He did not read 
them, but he drew the inference that her esti- 
mate of a man's worth depended upon the size 
of his library, and decided to acquire a library. 
" I want some books," he said to the trades- 
man ; and the bookseller inquired what books 
he wanted. " I want," he explained, " some 
large books for the lower shelves, and some 
small books for the upper ones. These are the 
measurements." The bookseller bowed, await- 
ing more precise instructions; and Korsakof 
looked round the shop, and observed that certain 
shelves were filled with volumes all of the same 
size and appearance. " Ah yes ! " he said : 
" here are some books that will do ; " and he 
never knew, until a friend pointed the fact out 
to him, that he had purchased several hundred 
copies of a single work. 

Korsakof s dismissal, however, was due, 
not to his indifference to literature, but to his 
revolt against the restrictions of the gilded 
242 



KORSAKOF 



cage. He tempted Catherine's confidante, the 
Countess Bruce, and she fell ; or perhaps (for 
there is no certainty in the matter) it was she 
who tempted him. It is said to have been 
Potemkin who provided them with facilities 
for transcending the limitations of the cage ; 
and he is said also to have contrived that they 
should be caught transcending them. His 
motives can only be guessed at ; the best ac- 
credited is that he merely wished to make a 
fresh appointment in order to draw a fresh com- 
mission for his services as an intermediary. 
Caught, at all events, the offenders were — by 
Catherine herself — behind a door which was 
left ajar at a time when it ought to have been 
locked ; and the consequence was that Kor- 
sakof went the way that Zoritch had gone 
before him. It is said that he and Zoritch used, 
in after years, to play cards together, and com- 
pare notes as to their experiences, which had 
certainly been very similar. 

Our authority for the statement is Sir 
Joseph Harris, afterwards first Earl of Malmes- 
bury, then British Ambassador at St. Peters- 
burg. He was not such an amused spectator 
as the Chevalier, but took the high moral tone 
of a man compelled by circumstances to associ- 
ate with persons whom he would not spontane- 
ously have touched even with a pair of tongs. 
Still, in the grave style of a diplomat who dis- 
charges a painful duty, he told his Government 
what he thought his Government ought to 

243 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



know ; and he took the view that his Govern- 
ment ought to be kept au courant with all the 
scandals of the day. It is from him, for in- 
stance, that we learn that Zoritch retired from 
his office with threats of violence, and that there 
was more than one candidate for the succession — 

" The Lieutenant of Police of Moscow, Mons. 
Acharoff, is a middle-aged man, well made, 
though with more of the Hercules than the 
Apollo. There is, I understand, a Persian can- 
didate in case of M. de Zoritch's resignation, 
but I cannot speak of his figure, as I am not 
personally acquainted with him. Zoritch is 
prepared for his dismission, but I am told he is 
prepared to call his successor to an account. 
Je sais bien que je dois sauter, mais par Dieu je 
couperai les oreilles a celui qui prend ma place, 
were his words, in talking the other day on this 
subject." 

And then, when the hour of dismissal is 
becoming more imminent — 

" A few days ago, Prince Potemkin, displeased 
with Zoritch, presented to the Empress, as she 
was going to the play, a tall hussar officer, one 
of his adjutants. She distinguished him a 
good deal. Zoritch was present. As soon as 
Her Imperial Majesty was gone, he fell upon 
Potemkin in a very violent manner, made use 
of the strongest expressions of abuse, and in- 
sisted on his fighting him. Potemkin declined 
244 



ZORITCH 



this offer, and behaved on the occasion as a 
person not undeserving the invectives bestowed 
upon him. The play being ended, Zoritch 
followed the Empress into her apartment, flung 
himself at her feet, and confessed what he had 
done ; saying that, notwithstanding the honours 
and riches she had heaped upon him, he was 
indifferent to everything but her favour and 
good graces. . . . Potemkin is determined to 
have him dismissed, and Zoritch is determined 
to cut the throat of his successor. Judge of the 
tenour of the whole Court from this anecdote." 

And then, when the successor was at last 
appointed — 

" Zoritch, a few days ago, received his final 
dismission. It was conveyed to him by the 
Empress herself in very gentle terms, but received 
by him in a very different manner. Forgetting 
to whom he was speaking, he was very bitter 
in his reproaches ; painted this mutable con- 
duct in the strongest colours, and foretold the 
most fatal consequences from it. . . . Zoritch, 
with an increase of pension, an immense sum 
of ready money, and an addition of seven 
thousand peasants to his estates, is going to 
travel. His successor, by name Korsak, will 
not be declared till this journey takes place ; 
the impetuosity of Zoritch's character making 
it not safe for any man to take publicly this 
office upon him while he remains in the country. 

245 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



Both Court and town are occupied with this 
event alone, and I am sorry to say it gives rise 
to many unpleasant reflections, and sinks in 
the eyes of foreigners the reputation of the 
Empress and the consideration of the Empire." 

Then, before Korsakof had been long estab- 
lished in his post — 

" The new favourite is very much on his 
decline. There are several competitors for his 
employment : some supported by Prince Pot em - 
kin ; some by Prince Orlof and Count Panin 
. . . but she seems strongly disposed to choose 
for herself. . . . The fate of these young gentle- 
men still remains undecided, though it appears 
settled that Korsakof should be sent to Spa for 
his health. As the small remains of decency 
kept up when I first came have totally dis- 
appeared, I should not be surprised if, instead 
of one favourite, we should see several : and 
that the effects should by that means hasten the 
evils which even otherwise must inevitably fall 
on the Empire." 

And then, early in 1779 — 

" The favourite of the day, who wears all the 
insignia and has the public honour of that office, 
is still the same Korsak ; he is very good- 
natured, but silly to a degree, and entirely 
subservient to the orders of Prince Potemkin 
and the Countess Bruce. These two seem now 
246 



KORSAKOF 



in quiet possession of the Empress's mind. 
He is supreme in regard to everything that 
regards her serious or pleasurable pursuits ; the 
other interferes only in the latter." 

In what fashion the Countess presumed to in- 
terfere with the Empress's "pleasurable pursuits" 
we have already seen. The consequences of the 
interference are noted by the Ambassador thus — 

" Korsak received his dismission from the 
mouth of the Empress herself yesterday morning ; 
and, a few hours afterwards, General Betzkoy 
was ordered to assure him of the Empress's 
intention of providing munificently for him, but 
that she wished he would either travel or marry. 
His successor is called Lanskoi, of the district of 
Smolensko ; he was one of the Chevalier Guards, 
and since Peterhof has been the object of Her 
Imperial Majesty's attention. Potemkin, how- 
ever, having another person in view, contrived 
to prevent his nomination till now, when he was 
induced to consent to it by a present of not less 
than 900,000 roubles in land and money on his 
birthday." 

It was Potemkin' s third commission, drawn 
as agent for the affairs of Catherine's heart ; but, 
though heavier than the two preceding ones, 
was well worth paying, for the number of 
roubles which Lanskoi pocketed was no less than 
7,260,000. 

247 



CHAPTER XXII 

Further Favourites — The Reign of Lanskoi — His Death — 
The Reign of Yermolof 

The story commonly told of the rise of Lanskoi is 
that General Tolstoy, when received in audience, 
drew Catherine's attention to him. " Your 
Imperial Majesty has a handsome young fellow 
doing sentry-go in the anteroom," he presumed 
to say ; and Catherine went out to inspect the 
sentry for herself, and was so favourably im- 
pressed that she at once invited him into the 
gilded cage. 

Wealth beyond the dreams of avarice — a 
fortune, to be precise, of 7,260,000 roubles — was 
in store for him ; but, at the hour of his pro- 
motion, five shirts constituted the sum total 
of his earthly possessions. It is related that, 
one night, having no money in his pocket, he 
appealed for a night's lodging to a professor 
of French with whom he was acquainted, and 
that the professor gave him a shakedown on 
the floor, while he himself went to bed. It is 
further related that, when he had attained to 
prosperity, he invited the professor, in his turn, 
to dine and spend the night, saying to him 
248 



LANSKOI 



genially, when the hour grew late, " Bedtime at 
last, my friend ; but now it is my turn to sleep 
between the sheets, and yours to make yourself 
as comfortable as you can on the bare boards." 
It is a graphic picture of the way in which 
Fortune's wheel just then revolved at Catherine's 
Court. We have already seen how heavily 
Potemkin taxed the revolution. 

The little that there is to be said about 
Lanskoi may be summed up in a few sentences. 
Catherine tried to educate him, as she had tried 
to educate her other favourites, but not much 
more successfully. " She has spent," writes the 
Chevalier de Corberon, " ten thousand roubles 
in buying him a library of books which he 
assuredly will never read." He adds that she 
exhorted him to read Cicero's Letters, with a 
view of qualifying himself for the conduct of 
the affairs of State ; and he proceeds to the 
generalisation — 

" This woman's illusions with regard to her 
favourites — illusions perpetually dispelled and 
then as frequently renewed, as her innumerable 
weaknesses succeed one another — are really 
terrible. She has high ideals and the best 
intentions, but her morals corrupt the country 
and her extravagance ruins it ; she will end with 
the reputation of a weakly sentimental woman." 

For the rest, Lanskoi was twenty- two years 
of age, had a mob of troublesome poor relations, 

249 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



and was too fond of punch — a special punch of 
his own invention, compounded of tokay, rum, 
and the juice of pine-apples ; but at least he was 
a contented favourite, and showed no desire to 
leave the nest when he had feathered it. He 
occupied it for four years, and only vacated 
it by death ; though rumours that his ejection 
was contemplated gained credence from time 
to time, and are repeated by both the Chev- 
alier and Harris. His successor, according 
to the former, was to be a certain Captain 
Pajacksi — " a young man of the build of a 
Hercules, of whom nothing else is at present 
known." Harris, on the contrary, mentions a 
certain Redinnof, adding the explanation which 
his intimacy with Potemkin enables him to 
give — 

" Lanskoi has conducted himself in so un- 
exceptionable a manner as not to afford the 
smallest pretext for dismissing him. He is 
neither jealous, inconstant, nor impertinent, 
and laments the disgrace he foresees impend- 
ing in so pathetic a manner that he puzzles both 
his sovereign and her confidants how to get rid 
of him without appearing harsh. The successor, 
however, presses hard upon him, and compassion 
will soon give way to a stronger feeling. I 
understand my friend proposes to make use 
of the unbounded power these moments will 
give him, in obtaining no less than 700,000 
roubles for himself." 
250 



LANSKOI 



Potemkin, that is to say, thought that it 
was time for him to draw yet another commis- 
sion ; and it is difficult to find anything beyond 
this passion for a percentage at the bottom of 
the intrigues for Lanskoi's discomfiture. Cather- 
ine's own feelings must be judged from the fact 
that she retained Lanskoi, and endowed him more 
richly than any of the others. She was nearly 
thirty years his senior, so that there may have 
been a maternal element in her affection, though 
it can hardly have been the predominant feeling. 
His death is attributed to a complication of 
scarlet fever and angina pectoris — aggravated, 
according to his German physician, by the 
exhausting effects of aphrodisiac drugs. Per- 
haps the punch compounded of tokay, rum, 
and the juice of pine-apples had also played 
its part in undermining his constitution ; but 
it is seldom possible to make head or tail of 
the diagnoses of eighteenth-century physicians. 
What is indisputable is the intensity of Cather- 
ine's distress. She neglected her imperial duties 
in order to lock herself up and cry with Lanskoi's 
sister ; and there were those among her courtiers 
who expected her to die of her grief. Her 
lamentations, in her letters to Grimm, were 
loud — 

" Public affairs," she wrote, " are getting 
on all right ; but I myself, who was so happy, 
have no happiness any longer. I cry, and I 
write, and that is all that I can do. If you 

251 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



want to know ' the truth about me, I can only 
tell you that, for three months, I have been 
inconsolable for my irreparable loss. I am now 
getting used, once more, to the sight of human 
faces ; but my heart still bleeds as it did at 
the first instant of my loss. I do my duty, 
and try to do it well ; but my sorrow is such 
as I have never felt before, and for three months 
I have been in the most terrible state, suffering 
the tortures of the damned." 

Other letters, to other correspondents, are 
couched in the same tone. There is no mis- 
taking the note of sincerity which sounds in 
them ; and of course it is a mistake (albeit a 
common one) to suppose that the mutable are 
never sincere. Catherine might be " weakly 
sentimental," as M. de Corberon declared, but 
she could also be genuinely sentimental at 
her hour. We may assume that the loneliness 
of her exalted position oppressed her, much 
as the sense of his dignified isolation is said 
sometimes to weigh upon the mind of the 
captain of a man-of-war. By upbringing, if 
not by birth, she was a German bourgeoise — 
and these are pre-eminently sentimental. Those 
who should have been her equals were now 
her inferiors. Her actual equals in rank she 
only met occasionally, and only on ceremonial 
terms. Sincerity and simplicity were only 
possible to her within the confines of the 
gilded cage, where she could hope that a 
252 



LANSKOI 



young man who owed everything to her would 
love her for herself alone. 

Not all of them had done so — indeed hardly 
any of them had done so. The best of them, 
visibly embarrassed by their promotion, had 
quickly bored her. Others had exploited her, 
and then made her ridiculous by their familiari- 
ties, or their infidelities, or both. Empress 
though she was, and imperially beautiful, she 
had known jealousy and neglect, just like any 
rich tradesman's daughter who buys a noble 
husband with her father's fortune. If all 
the stories are true, she had even known 
what it was to be knocked about when she 
objected. Moreover, marriage with an equal 
was out of the question for her — the dark 
stories of the death of her first husband barred 
the way to that ; and she was a woman who 
felt that it was not good for her to live alone ; 
and, being an Empress, albeit an Empress 
getting on in years, she had only to lift her 
finger and beckon, in order to replace a lover 
who had tired or displeased her. She could 
have lovers, in short, as easily as an Emperor 
could have mistresses, and had as little need 
to resist the temptations of novelty. Because 
she yielded to those temptations, and made no 
mystery about it, she has been compared to 
Louis xv. ; but she differed from the Well- 
Beloved in an essential point. 

She needed sentiment — not always, but from 
time to time. She needed — also from time 

253 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



to time — the illusion of those things to the 
reality of which it was impossible for her to 
attain. Lanskoi gave her that illusion, as none 
of her other lovers, since her separation from 
Poniatowski, had given it. Consequently, she 
valued and cherished him as she had valued 
and cherished none of them. It did not matter 
to her that he was expensive — for the bene- 
factions of an Autocrat are only a matter of 
robbing Peter to endow Paul ; and she forgave 
him for his addiction to rum punch — though 
she herself only drank weak wine and water ; 
and when he died, she really felt as if his death 
had overclouded her sentimental life for ever, 
and she would never (being now fifty-five) have 
the heart to love again. 

Yet she wanted to love again ; for, if she 
had been in love with her lover, she was also 
in love with love itself. And a woman who is 
anxious to love again at fifty-five knows that 
she has little time to lose, and is therefore 
responsive to appeals to conquer her sorrow 
and make an effort; and, in the case of an 
Empress, such appeals are not likely to be 
lacking. They were not wanting in Catherine's 
case ; and at last, after the lapse of ten months, 
she responded to them. Grimm, as usual, was 
the correspondent in whom she confided — 

" My heart," she wrote to him, " is once 
more calm and serene, for, with the help of my 
friends, I have made an effort and roused 
254 



YERMOLOF 



myself. We began with a comedy, which they 
say was charming — there is your proof that I am 
once more gay and animated. The period of 
monosyllables is past, and I cannot complain 
of the lack of friends whose attachment and 
attentions distract and relieve me, though I 
needed time to recover the taste for such things, 
and still more time to recover the habit of them. 
Which means — to put it in one word instead of 
a hundred — that I have found a new friend, 
capable of winning my friendship, and very 
worthy of it." 

Just so ; and Potemkin had played his usual 
part in the transaction. He had submitted, it 
is said, two candidates — Yermolof and Mamo- 
nof; and Catherine, while favourably im- 
pressed by both of them, gave her preference to 
the former. Castera tells us that the young 
Prince Dashkof also proposed himself as what, 
in the electoral world, is called an " independent 
candidate," but was deceived, tricked, and 
defeated by Potemkin' s cunning. His mother, 
in her Memoirs, treats the calumny with silent 
contempt ; and it may very well be no more 
than a calumny. The man, at any rate, who 
actually caught Catherine's heart on the rebound 
was the aforesaid Yermolof. 

He was a subaltern in the foot-guards. His 
tenancy of the gilded cage was brief ; and little 
is recorded of him either for good or evil. 
Catherine accepted him without enthusiasm, 

255 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



in the spirit of the bride who prefers a manage 
de convenance to the indignity of perpetual 
spinsterhood — or perhaps one should say in the 
spirit of the man of the world who takes a 
mistress, not because he is infatuated, but because 
he has convinced himself that such companion- 
ship will relieve his boredom. He was eligible, but 
he did not touch her heart ; and his failure to 
do so is reflected in the fact that the shower of 
roubles rained on him was, in comparison with 
some of the previous showers, the merest drizzle. 
The number of roubles which fell to his share 
was only 550,000. 

No doubt the lukewarmness of Catherine's 
attachment was the principal reason why his 
reign was brief ; but there were other reasons 
also. He waxed arrogant, crossed Potemkin's 
path, and got in Potemkin's way — a challenge 
to a trial of strength which Potemkin was not 
slow to take up. Yermolof had an uncle who 
had had a deadly quarrel with Potemkin at the 
card-table ; he espoused his cause. He also es- 
poused the cause of a certain ex-Khan of the 
Crimea, whose pension he accused Potemkin 
of misappropriating ; and he succeeded in 
causing a temporary coolness between Catherine 
and her powerful adviser. But his illusion of 
triumph was shortlived. As soon as Potemkin 
realised the new situation, he came to Catherine's 
boudoir, frowning, threatening, and thundering. 
She must choose, he said, between Yermolof 
and himself — and she must choose at once. 
256 



YERMOLOF 



" So long," he said, " as you keep that white 
negro, 1 1 shall not set my foot inside the Palace." 

Catherine, being accustomed to be ordered 
about by him, submitted. It seems that she 
was too indifferent to Yermolof even to resist. 
She wanted a favourite ; but whether the 
favourite was Yermolof or another did not 
matter. Perhaps her indifference was her 
fashion of showing her fidelity to the memory 
of Lanskoi. However that may be, she sent 
Yermolof an instant and urgent order to travel 
for the benefit of his health, writing the order 
while Potemkin stood over her and practically 
dictated it. Yermolof, receiving the order, 
pleaded that he might at least be permitted to 
see his Empress once more in order to say fare- 
well to her ; but Potemkin would not have it. 
He proposed to strike while the iron was hot, 
and to take no risk of what might happen when 
the iron was cold. He told Catherine that he 
declined to leave her presence until Yermolof 
had left the Palace ; and Catherine, knowing 
him for a man of his word, did as he insisted. 
Then he rushed off and told the French Ambas- 
sador, M. de Segur, what had happened. 

M. de Segur had been as anxious as Potemkin 
to see the favourite deposed. He had contrived 
to bring Potemkin over to the French interest — 
most likely by corrupt means which we need not 
stop to investigate. Yermolof's influence, such 
as it was, had been thrown into the opposite 

1 He so called Yermolof on account of his extreme pallor. 
R 257 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



scale ; and M. de Segur, who did not know his 
Potemkin, had expected to see Potemkin dis- 
comfited and Yermolof triumphant. So now, 
as we gather from M. de Segur's Memoires, 
Potemkin sang his paean — 

" As soon as I met the Prince, he threw 
himself into my arms, exclaiming, ' Well, 
my friend, did I mislead you ? Has that boy 
bowled me over ? Have I been destroyed by 
my audacity ? Not a bit of it. For once, Mr. 
Diplomat, you will have to admit that, in 
these political matters, my predictions are more 
to be relied upon than yours.' " 

And M. de Segur echoed the paean, in suit- 
able language, in a dispatch to the French 
Foreign Office, openly rejoicing in the overthrow 
of an upstart who had, he said, honoured him 
with his personal dislike, and " used the most 
indecent language whenever the name of France 
was mentioned." Whence we may infer that 
even in the eyes of the corps diplomatique the 
office of favourite had come to be regarded as 
a post in the Civil Service, though not of the 
permanent Civil Service — a proper subject of 
jobbery and intrigue, to be conducted without 
superfluous consideration for the preferences of 
Catherine's own heart. 

And so, Yermolof having gone the way of 
all favourites, — expelled almost as suddenly as 
the mistress to whom Sainte-Beuve, after he had 
258 



MAMONOF 



locked her out, threw down her clothes and 
other belongings from her bedroom window, — 
with a comparatively modest number of roubles 
in his pocket, Potemkin's other nominee, Mamo- 
nof, was ushered into the gilded cage in his 
stead. 



4 



259 



CHAPTER XXIII 



The Accession of Mamonof 

The reign of Mamonof is hardly to be called 
a reign, though it lasted longer than that of 
his predecessor. Measured strictly in roubles, 
its glory was less than that of his predecessor. 
Yermolof, in a year, accumulated 550,000 
roubles ; Mamonof no more than 880,000 
roubles in four years. Moreover, Yermolof did 
at least attempt to meddle with matters classed 
as too high for him ; whereas Mamonof was 
afraid to meddle. One gets his measure, in 
that respect, in two stories told by the Comte 
de Segur, who was well disposed towards him 
because he, on his part, was well disposed 
towards France and the French influence. 

M. de Segur's great difficulty was to get 
past Catherine's ministers, — in particular, 
to get past Potemkin, who was no longer 
as friendly as he had been, — and gain the 
Empress's own ear for certain proposals which 
he was charged to make. To that end he 
wrote to Mamonof, appealing to him to use his 
influence ; and Mamonof hastened to reply that 
260 



THE ACCESSION OF MAMONOF 



he had none, being strictly forbidden to inter- 
pose in political questions. But M. de Segur, 
who was a very clever diplomatist, had been 
well aware of that when he wrote. Mamonof, 
he had calculated, would run to the Empress 
with the letter and the draft of his own answer, 
in order to show how strictly he desired to 
confine himself to his decorative functions — 
Catherine would thus indirectly learn the facts 
which he suspected Potemkin of withholding 
from her. She did so, and the Ambassador 
gained his point, showing great address in 
using the favourite in the only way in which 
this particular favourite could be used. Then, 
in order to show his gratitude, he invited 
the favourite to dinner ; and the invitation 
brings us to the second anecdote. 

Mamonof, M. de Segur tells us, was not 
allowed outside the gates of the Imperial Palace 
without permission, but had to apply for an 
exeat, like a modern undergraduate who desires 
to run up to town to attend a funeral. The 
favour of the exeat was granted, as an act of 
courtesy to the Ambassador, but the duration 
of the leave of absence was strictly limited ; 
and Catherine took steps to see that it was not 
exceeded. She came, in the course of the 
evening, to the Ambassador's door to fetch 
her favourite, as a nurse fetches a child. Her 
carriage was seen from the window, slowly 
driving to and fro ; she herself was seen, look- 
ing up, waiting, watching, and making sure. 

261 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



The stories are significant, and the impression 
derived from them is confirmed by a passage 
quoted by M. Waliszewski from Langeron's 
unpublished Memoirs — 

" Some of the favourites," Langeron writes, 
" contrived to distinguish and dignify their 
degraded functions : Potemkin by making him- 
self, to all intents and purposes, an Emperor ; 
Zavadovski by making himself generally useful 
in the civil administration of the Empire ; 
Mamonof by making it clear to every one that 
he felt thoroughly ashamed of himself." 

One may surmise that a young man of six- 
and-twenty generally does feel ashamed of 
himself when he not only consents to be the 
lover of a woman of fifty-eight, but is publicly 
exploited as such ; and Catherine, as we know, 
did not hide the affections of her heart under a 
bushel. On this occasion, she caused Mamonof 's 
portrait, together with her own, to be hung as 
an ornament in every room of her pleasaunce, 
the Hermitage, to the respectful amazement of 
her guests, and even allowed engraved copies 
of the portraits to be sold as pendants in the 
St. Petersburg shops. Moreover, in the course 
of her famous journey to the Crimea, to which 
we shall presently come, Mamonof's bed, placed 
side by side with her own, was an object of 
admiration which sundry of the companions of 
her progress were privileged to inspect. 

If the lover had been, like some of the lovers, 

262 



THE ACCESSION OF MAMONOF 



a promoted non-commissioned officer, he might 
not have minded. He might, in that case, 
even have been proud, believing his elevation 
to be the subject of envy as well as remark. 
But Mamonof was by way of being a gentleman 
— a man of refinement and culture, if not of 
character. Those who met him say that he 
talked well — and in several languages. He 
was " quite witty," says Sacken of Saxony ; 
and he was clever enough to write trifles for 
amateur theatrical performances — poor stuff, 
indeed, but not absolutely beneath contempt. 
Moreover, he was of good family, related in 
some way to the illustrious Russian House of 
Rurik. One can understand that such a man 
" felt his position," even though he did not 
display any great haste to retire from it — 
even though the Emperor of Austria gave him 
a gold watch and made him, not indeed a 
Prince, but at any rate a Count, of the Holy 
Roman Empire. He looked ahead, no doubt, as 
most men do who perform uncongenial tasks, 
to the time when he would be free to follow 
his inclinations, and live his life in his own 
way ; but, in the meanwhile, he unblushingly 
and unshamefacedly added field to field, rouble 
to rouble, serf to serf. 

Catherine meant to be charming to him— a 
mother as well as a mistress. She loved most 
of her later lovers in that spirit, and had a 
retort ready for anyone who reproached her 
for preferring lovers of such tender years. " I 

263 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



am rendering a great service to the Empire," 
she said, " in forming the characters of so many- 
gifted young men ; " and there was no denying 
that she could cite a sufficient number of in- 
stances to make out a case. Zavadovski, after 
loving her, had become a very competent 
official. Zoritch, the ex-major of hussars, was 
inspired, after loving her, to found at his own 
cost the first Russian Military Academy. The 
case of Potemkin — though he, doubtless, taught 
more than he learnt — has been before us ; and 
there is the case of Zubof still to come. De- 
cidedly Catherine could claim that to love her 
was a liberal education, in the sense that her 
lovers were also her pupils, and that a fair 
proportion of the pupils passed into the Civil 
Service, and proved themselves competent 
functionaries. No doubt it might have been 
with Mamonof as with the others, if he had 
been that sort of man. But he was not. He 
" felt his position " ; he wondered what people 
thought of him ; he was afraid of being laughed 
at ; he was ashamed, and therefore powerless 
to exploit the favours which oppressed him. 
One thinks of him, far more than of any of the 
other favourites, as a toy, a pet, a lap-dog. 

" Red coat " was Catherine's nickname for 
him ; and this is her report of him to the ever- 
inquisitive Grimm — 

" The red coat envelops a person whose 
heart is excellent, and whose honesty is great. 
264 



THE ACCESSION OF MAMONOF 



He has wit enough for four, an inexhaustible 
stock of gaiety, much originality in his views 
of life and his ways of expressing himself, an 
admirable education which qualifies him to 
shine. He hides his love of poetry as if it 
were a crime ; he is passionately fond of music ; 
he takes in ideas with rare facility. God knows 
what he hasn't learnt by heart. He recites ; 
he gossips ; he has the manners and tone 
of good society ; his politeness is something 
wonderful ; he writes both Russian and French 
far better than most Russians. His appearance 
is in perfect harmony with his intelligence. His 
features are very regular ; he has beautiful 
black eyes and equally beautiful eyelashes. He 
is a little above medium height ; his air is 
noble, and his manners are easy and natural. 
If you were to meet this Red Coat, I am sure 
you would ask his name if you did not already 
know it." 

To Potemkin, again, Catherine wrote of 
Mamonof as " invaluable " ; and Potemkin was 
not jealous. One may reasonably infer that 
Potemkin knew his man, had taken the measure 
of his value, and apprehended no rivalry from 
him in his own sphere of influence — having, in 
fact, pushed his fortunes in this quarter pre- 
cisely because he was colourless and without 
ambition. Potemkin' s attitude, in short, like 
M. de Segur's, stamps Mamonof as an amiable 
nonentity ; though the world in general might 

265 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GEEAT 



never have realised his limitations if Catherine 
had not taken him with her, as she might have 
taken a lap-dog, in her famous progress through 
her dominions to the Crimea, and so exposed him 
to critical eyes. 

The idea of that journey, of course, was not 
his. He much preferred a quiet life ; he had 
not the least desire to make a show of himself ; 
and if he ever had any ideas on matters of high 
policy, he never ventured to propound them. 
Yermolof, however, had thrown out the sugges- 
tion ; Potemkin had taken it up ; and Catherine 
had fallen in with it. Information had reached 
Yermolof that Potemkin was making a mess 
of things in the territories lately taken from 
the Turks ; and he hoped that if Catherine 
saw the mess, Potemkin would be discredited. 
Potemkin, however, was not in the least afraid. 
The journey, he knew, would not be stage- 
managed by Yermolof, but by him ; and he 
trusted his own genius for stage-management. 
Catherine would only see what he chose to show 
her, and he would only show her what she 
would be pleased to see. Provisional cities 
should spring up wherever she desired to find 
them, like mushrooms, in a night — even if they 
disappeared again as soon as she had passed ; 
and if their provisional inhabitants did not look 
prosperous and contented, he would know the 
reason why. So, instead of opposing Yermolof's 
proposal, he merely postponed it until he had 
had time to arrange the mise- en- scene ; and 
266 



THE ACCESSION OF MAMONOF 



then, after Yermolof had fallen from his high 
estate, he revived it and pressed it as the happiest 
of happy thoughts. 

And Catherine was delighted. The scheme 
appealed to her as such dramatic conceptions 
always did. She had no idea that the stage was 
to be set so as to deceive her ; but she liked 
the idea of a stage, and herself as the central 
figure on it ; and the more she looked at it 
the better it pleased her. It was a chance 
of impressing Europe far more effectively than 
she had impressed it by her gesticulations from 
the westward window of her Palace on the Neva. 
Having resolved to give the performance, she 
further determined that it should be no hole- 
and-corner affair, but should be given in a 
magnificent style worthy of Potemkin's magni- 
ficent stage-management, in the presence of 
guests whose attendance would be a guarantee 
against the perishing of its fame for lack of 
chroniclers. The Ambassadors were the best 
descriptive reporters of those days ; so she 
would invite M. de Segur and Mr. FitzHerbert. 
The Prince de Ligne of the Austrian Nether- 
lands should also be of the party. Her old 
friend Poniatowski — now Stanislas Augustus, 
King of a partly partitioned Poland — and 
Joseph ii. of Austria, should be invited to visit 
her at one of her halting-places. It should be 
such a progress, in short, as the world did not 
remember to have seen before, and hardly 
expected to see again. 

26? 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE -THEJGRE AT 



And of course she would take Mamonof with 
her — much as she might have taken a spaniel 
or a lap-dog ; partly because she liked him, 
and partly because she considered herself 
too great to need to make a secret of her 
partialities 



268 



CHAPTER XXIV 



Catherine's Journey to her Crimean Dominions 

The original design of Catherine's progress to 
the Crimea was even more impressive than its 
execution. Report and intention anticipated 
still greater glories than were realised. The 
splendours of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, if 
not of the Durbar, pale into insignificance beside 
the plan. There were to be triumphal arches, 
through which the Empress was to pass in a 
triumphal car, with a wreath of laurel on her 
head. An immense army — six regiments of 
cavalry and twenty-two of infantry — was to 
escort her wherever she went. She was to be 
crowned Queen of the Crimea ; and no less than 
six archbishops, supported by a vast concourse 
of the inferior clergy, were to superintend her 
ceremonial devotions. Seven million roubles 
were to be distributed in gifts ; and Catherine's 
younger grandson, Constantine, was to be con- 
ducted to the gates of the Ottoman dominions, 
and shown to the Ottoman people as the 
Prince destined to set the coping-stone on 
the policy of Peter the Great, and reign over 
the Moslems at the Golden Horn. 

269 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



But that was not to be. The Grand Duke 
Constantine fell sick of the measles, and had to 
be left at home. The rumour was spread that 
the purpose of the military promenade was to 
trample conquered peoples in the dust. It was 
not certain that all the subjected tribes would 
prove subservient. There was a danger that 
some of them might be frightened into hostility. 
In view of that risk, the plan of the progress was 
modified ; but, even so, it was designed on a 
scale of magnificent grandeur. Not only the 
people but also the chroniclers were impressed. 
The chief of them was M. de Segur, who, courtier 
though he was, had all the gifts of a good special 
correspondent, including a keen eye for pictur- 
esque and humorous detail; and where he fails 
us, we have the lively notes of the Prince de 
Ligne — fifty years old, but still as merry as a 
boy, and as audacious a flatterer as ever paid a 
lady the compliments which ladies enjoy. And 
so the progress began on 18th January 1787, in 
circumstances which inspired M. de Segur to 
eloquent exclamations concerning " the spring- 
time of life, when anxiety leaves neither traces 
on the heart nor wrinkles on the brow." Here 
is his first picture — 

" The Empress took with her in her carriage 
Mile Protassof 1 and Count Mamonof, who 
never left her side, Count Cobentzel, the Grand 

1 A lady who had succeeded Countess Bruce in the role of 
confidante. 

270 



JOURNEY TO THE CRIMEA 

Equerry Narishkin, and the Grand Chamberlain 
Schouvalof, I myself rode in the second 
carriage, with FitzHerbert, Count Czernichef, 
and the Count of Anhalt. The procession 
consisted of 14 carriages, 124 sledges, and 
40 supplementary vehicles. At every post 
station 560 horses were waiting for us. The 
days, at that season of the year, were short. 
The sun, rising late, disappeared again after 
six or seven hours, and the nights were terribly 
black ; but the darkness was scattered by 
methods of truly Oriental magnificence. On 
both sides of the road, at brief intervals, there 
were blazing bonfires of pine, and larch, and 
cypress ; so that our track was a path of fire more 
brilliant than the daylight." 

Then follows an account of Catherine's daily 
programme of duty and diversion — 

" She rose at six, and set to work with her 
ministers. Then she breakfasted, and held a 
levee. We started at nine, and stopped for 
dinner at two. Then we got into the carriages 
again, and drove on until seven. Wherever she 
arrived, she found a palace, or at any rate a 
great country house, prepared for her reception ; 
and we dined with her every day. After de- 
voting a few minutes to her toilet, Her Majesty 
joined us in the drawing-room, and chatted or 
played cards until nine, when she withdrew, 
and worked again until eleven." 

271 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 

Her talk, as she jolted over the roads, was 
largely of her Empire. She spoke of its grand- 
eur with a pretty modesty, calling it mon 
petit menage — drawing the attention of her 
companions to the fact that it was gradually 
" growing larger and getting filled up." She 
supposed, she said, that the grand ladies of 
Paris were full of pity for them, because they 
were condemned to travel " with a tiresome old 
Empress in a country of barbarians and bears." 
She told stories of eminent Frenchmen who, 
in the days when she first flashed her signals 
to the West, had assumed that she was a 
barbarian, and behaved accordingly : the story, 
for instance, of Mercier de la Riviere, once a 
French functionary in Martinique, whom she 
had invited to Russia because she had been 
interested by his treatise on Political Economy. 

Arriving at Moscow at a time when the 
Empress was detained elsewhere, that philo- 
sopher thought it would be a good idea 
if he were to make himself useful by re- 
organising the Russian Civil Service. He there- 
fore bought three adjoining houses, knocked 
them into one, transformed the reception 
rooms into antechambers and the bedrooms 
into offices, and painted on the various doors : 
Department of Trade ; Department of Justice ; 
Department of Finance, etc. etc. Catherine 
discovered the comedy in progress, stopped it, 
and sent the comedian about his business. 
" M. de la Riviere," she commented, " was under 
272 



JOURNEY TO THE CRIMEA 



the impression that we walked on all fours ; and 
he had been kind enough to come all the way 
from the West Indies for the purpose of setting 
us on our hind legs ; " a piquant reminiscence 
to revive now that the glories of the great Empire 
were apparent even to the least observant eye. 

And so to Kief, where a halt was called until 
the ice of the Dnieper melted, and the progress 
could be continued by water — a halt during which 
the Ambassadors were more than ever amazed 
by the munificence of Catherine's hospitality. 
They had come prepared to lodge and board 
themselves at their own cost ; but they found 
everything provided — 

" An elegant villa residence was assigned to 
me ; and I found it equipped with everything 
that I could require. The Empress had supplied 
me with a butler, valets, footmen, cooks, coach- 
men, carriages, postilions, costly plate, the 
finest table linen, porcelain, and the choicest 
wines — everything, in short, that was necessary 
to the maintenance of a stylish household. 
She had strictly forbidden her people to allow 
us to pay for anything whatsoever ; and from 
the beginning to the end of our journey, we had 
absolutely no expenses, except for the presents 
which we thought it right to offer to the owners 
of the houses allotted to us." 

Potemkin, the stage-manager of the display, 
joined the party at Kief, but kept himself in 
the background as a good stage-manager should, 
s 273 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



His headquarters were in a neighbouring monas- 
tery, where he sprawled on a sofa in his dressing- 
gown and slippers, with a dirty face and a 
tumbled head of hair, curt and brusque in his 
manner, apparently absorbed in playing chess 
with one of his subordinates, but nevertheless, 
somehow or other, getting his work done, and 
conjuring up effective spectacles as required 
— pageants of Empire such as no other State in 
Europe could have furnished. The miscellaneous 
subjects of the Empress defiled, or manoeuvred, 
before her at his bidding ; and the Prince de 
Ligne described his impressions, with a spark- 
ling pen, in a letter to his Parisian friend, Mme 
de Coigny — 

" Ah ! good heavens ! what a scene before 
me ! What a hurly-burly ! What diamonds, 
gold, stars, and cordons ! What chains, ribbons, 
turbans ! What scarlet caps, either furred or 
pointed ! . . . Louis xiv. would have been jealous 
of his sister, or he would have married her, in 
order to have such a splendid circle about him. 
The sons of the King of the Caucasus, of Hera- 
clius, for instance, who are here, would give 
him more satisfaction than his five or six old 
knights of St. Louis. Twenty archbishops (a 
trifle unclean), with beards flowing to their 
knees, are far more picturesque than the king's 
chaplains in their little neckbands. The escort 
of cavalry, attending a Polish nobleman, 
has more of an air than his mounted police 
274 



JOURNEY TO THE CRIMEA 



in their short jackets, preceding the melan- 
choly coach, with its six sorry nags, of an 
official in a flat collar and big wig ; and their 
glittering sabres with jewelled hilts are much 
more imposing than the white wands of the 
great officers of the King of England. . . . They 
have just come to see fireworks which, they 
say, have cost 40,000 roubles." 

Such was the pageant— though Kief only 
saw the beginning of it ; and, in addition, 
there were balls, banquets, and concerts, once 
or twice a week ; but, in the intervals between 
the formal entertainments, Catherine unbent 
with the ease and charm which made her so 
many friends during her life and still conciliate 
even those students of her career who shake 
their heads in disapprobation of her proceed- 
ings. She lived, in these days, with her chosen 
intimates and the Ambassadors, much as the 
mistress of a great country house lives with 
guests who are her equals. Eight or ten of 
them dined at her table daily, and spent the 
evening with her afterwards, untroubled by 
any embarrassing restraints of etiquette. " The 
Empress," writes M. de Segur, " disappeared, 
and we only saw a charming hostess. We 
told each other stories, we talked literature, we 
played billiards." She appealed to him as a 
poet, he tells us, to teach her to write poetry 
too ; but though he tried for a whole week, 
she made no perceptible progress ; and the 

275 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



British Ambassador, who had a dry wit of his 
own, tried to console her for her failure — 

" Ah ! madam," he said, " one cannot 
achieve all kinds of glory simultaneously. In 
the matter of poetry, you would have done 
well to rest contented with the renown won by 
the beautiful lines which you composed as an 
epitaph for your pet dog — 

'Here lies the Duchess Anderson, 
Who bit the Dr. Rogers on.' " 

That was one of the jests of the gay journey ; 
and another was afforded by the merry humour 
of the Prince de Ligne, who, in spite of his fifty 
years, was the life and soul of the party. 

Among his other accomplishments, the Prince 
was an amateur doctor ; and in that capacity he 
persuaded Cobentzel, the Austrian Ambassador, 
to be bled for a sore throat, and M. de Segur 
to take a purgative to counteract a fever. He 
himself was also suffering at the time from 
some trivial ailment, but left the cure to nature ; 
and, a few days later, the Empress inquired 
after his health. He replied that he was well ; 
but Catherine pressed him on the subject. 
" I certainly understood that you were indis- 
posed," she said. " Has the doctor cured you ? " 
" No, madam ; I treated myself after a fashion 
of my own." " What fashion was that ? " 
" I applied leeches to Cobentzel, madam, and 
I gave Segur a black draught ; and now I am 
myself again." 
276 



JOURNEY TO THE CRIMEA 



So they trifled ; and one observes that, in 
all the trifling, there was no question of Mamonof . 
He was there all the time, just as a spaniel 
or a lap-dog might have been. There was no 
more mystery about him than there would have 
been about such a pet — no more mystery 
about his sleeping-place than there would have 
been about a spaniel's kennel. Catherine im- 
posed him on the company, and the company 
accepted him; but he cut no sort of a figure in 
it. He was amiable, but of no more account 
than a barber's block — a dull dog among 
brilliant talkers ; overwhelmed by his patron 
Potemkin, and out-classed by the wits ; feel- 
ing his position painfully, as we have already 
pointed out. But now, at last, the Dnieper ice 
was breaking up, and the journey could be con- 
tinued by water ; the fleet being " the most 
imposing ever seen upon a river." 

" It comprised more than eighty vessels 
— the crews and passengers numbering three 
thousand men. At the head of the proces- 
sion floated seven galleys of immense size and 
elegant design, artistically painted, and manned 
by nimble sailors in gay uniforms ; the deck- 
cabins richly adorned with gold and silk. 

" On the galley immediately following that 
of the Empress were MM. de Cobentzel and 
FitzHerbert. I myself shared the second with 
the Prince de Ligne. The others were assigned 
to Prince Potemkin, his nieces, the Grand 

277 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



Chamberlain, the Grand Equerry, the Ministers, 
and the other great personages whom Catherine 
had honoured with invitations to attend her. 
Then, in the remaining boats, followed the 
officers of lower rank, together with the baggage 
and the supplies. 

" On each of our galleys we found a bed- 
chamber and a second apartment, luxuriously 
elegant, furnished with a comfortable sofa, a 
commodious bed, hung with Chinese silk, and a 
mahogany writing-desk. On each galley there 
was a band of musicians ; and a fleet of small 
boats hovered unceasingly about the squadron, 
which looked like a creation of fairyland. 

" An immense concourse of people greeted 
the Empress with ringing cheers when they 
heard the guns fire their salutes and saw the 
sailors rhythmically strike the waters of the 
Dnieper with their gaudily painted oars. On 
the banks stood excited crowds, assembled 
from every corner of the Empire to 
admire the progress and offer the productions 
of their various climes in tribute to their 
sovereign.' 5 

So M. de Segur writes ; and the Prince de 
Ligne, expressing his enthusiasm with charac- 
teristic emphasis, adds supplementary details — 

" Cleopatra's fleet left Kief as soon as a 
general cannonading informed us that the ice 
of the Dnieper had broken up. If anyone had 
asked, on seeing us embark on our barges, 
278 

) 



i 



JOURNEY TO THE CRIMEA 



great and small, to the number of eighty, with 
combined crews of three thousand men, 6 What 
the devil we were going to do in those galleys ? ' 
we should have answered, 6 Amuse ourselves, 
and — Vogue la galere ! ' for never was there a 
voyage so brilliant and so agreeable. Our 
chambers are furnished with Chinese silk and 
divans ; and when any of those who, like myself, 
accompany the Empress leaves or returns to 
his galley, at least twelve musicians whom we 
have on board celebrate the event. But some- 
times there is a little danger at night in return- 
ing after supping on Her Majesty's galley, because 
we have to ascend the Dnieper, often against 
the wind, in a small boat. In fact, one night 
there was a tempest, in order that we might 
have all experiences, and two or three galleys 
grounded on a sandbank." 

But tempests were few and far between. 
The weather, in the main, had the fresh, in- 
spiring charm of spring. There was no more 
ice in the intercourse of the picnicking companions 
than on the river, and the conversation sparkled 
like the sun — 

" We drew parallels," writes M. de Segur, 
" between ancient and modern times, comparing 
France to Attica, England to Carthage, Prussia 
to Macedonia, and Catherine's Empire to that 
of Cyrus. Then we told stories, both old and new ; 
the Empress herself entertaining us with several 
anecdotes about Peter the Great and Elizabeth." 

279 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



And then, from time to time, Catherine 
practised modesty and self-depreciation — 

" Ah yes ! " she said. " I know you rather 
like me. The general effect of me pleases you. 
But I'd be willing to wager that, when you go 
into details, you find it easy enough to pull 
me to pieces. I don't talk grammatically, and 
my spelling is something shocking. M. de Segur 
knows what a wooden-headed creature I am. 
He gave me lessons in poetry, and I couldn't 
learn to write half a dozen lines of it. In spite 
of all his compliments, I'm quite sure that, if 
I were a private individual living in France, 
your brilliant Parisian ladies wouldn't think 
me fit to ask to supper." 

And so on and so forth, fishing for compli- 
ments, and never failing to catch them — being 
told that, if she had been born a man, she 
would have been, a great diplomatist, according 
to FitzHerbert, a great legislator, according 
to Cobentzel, and a great soldier, according to 
Segur. One can imagine no more piquant talk 
for such a hostess, doing the honours of such an 
Empire ; and it was always the Ambassadors 
and the Prince de Ligne who kept the ball 
rolling and carried off the honour of repartee, 
to the exclusion alike of Potemkin and of 
Mamonof. The former was always in the 
background, occupied with stage - management 
and ulterior designs — and also with the game 
280 



PONIATOWSKI 



of chess and certain love affairs of his own, of 
which we will speak in their proper place. The 
latter was in the foreground, sharing a state- 
room with the Empress on her galley ; but 
his place at the daily social reunions was purely 
ornamental. He embellished the intimate 
dinners, but contributed nothing to the feast 
of reason. He only flashes, for a moment, into 
the relation of the progress because he sulked, 
and gave an exhibition of jealousy, when the 
travellers arrived at Kanief, where Stanislas of 
Poland, whom we know as Poniatowski, was to 
be received in audience. 

Poor Poniatowski ! Those who knew 
Catherine best had declared that, of all her 
lovers, he was the only one whom she had 
really loved. He had been her confidant, 
though not her colleague, when she overthrew 
her husband ; and gossip had once credited her 
with the intention of resigning her own throne 
to share the throne which she had given him. 
Instead of which, she had stripped him of a 
portion of his dominions, and was now to receive 
him almost as a stranger, — and at all events as a 
potentate reduced to the humble rank of a vassal, 
— with a new favourite installed in the place 
which had once been his. One need not be sur- 
prised that the Ambassadors were curious, and 
clustered round, to see how he and Mamonof 
66 took it," and whether they glared at each other, 
or smiled, or sighed. 



281 



CHAPTER XXV 



Interview with Poniatowski — The Crimean Journey continued 
— Return to St. Petersburg 

Of a truth, Poniatowski' s position was a hard 
one, and most men would have felt embarrassed 
in his place. She who had once loved him 
had despoiled him, and her diplomatic repre- 
sentatives had insulted him in his capital. 
The Russian Resident at Warsaw had actually 
put an affront on him in his own theatre, coming 
late to his box, and then insisting, in the royal 
presence, that the performance should be re- 
commenced for his benefit, just as if he had 
been himself the King. Such memories as 
that had been superimposed upon his senti- 
mental memories ; and yet, the Prince de 
Ligne tells us, " he spent three months and three 
millions in waiting to see the Empress for three 
hours." The story of her life contains no more 
persuasive proof of her charm. 

His coming, too, in spite of the waiting and 
the expense, was as informal as he could make 
it. He presented himself not as a potentate 
but as a friend, assuming an incognito as he 
stepped on to the barge sent to fetch him. 
282 



t 



PONIATOWSKI 

" Gentlemen,'' he said, with a smile and a 
flourish of his hat, " the King of Poland begs me 
to introduce Prince Poniatowski ; " and then 
they rowed him to the imperial galley. The 
Ambassadors, as has been said, crowded round 
in order to see how he took it — and how 
Catherine and Mamonof took it ; but they 
had little chance of noticing anything except 
that Mamonof sulked. Catherine withdrew 
with Poniatowski to her private cabin, and 
was closeted with him there for half an hour. 
The Ambassadors do not pretend to know what 
passed between them. They only observed 
that, when the interview was over, the Empress 
looked embarrassed, and the King melancholy. 

One may guess that she begged his pardon, 
and blamed her Ministers and her royal and 
imperial cousins for what had happened — 
explaining that great Empires expanded in 
obedience to the laws of nature, and that even 
an Autocrat of All the Russias could not prevent 
water from flowing under the bridge. One may 
guess, too, that he believed her because he wished 
to believe — because he was not a King who 
set much store by his kingdom, but a senti- 
mentalist to whom sentiment was the greatest 
thing in the world. His pleasure, no doubt, 
was a sad pleasure ; and yet one feels sure that 
he would have been sorry to miss it, knowing 
that, in spite of Mamonof, — over whose head 
he may be supposed to have looked with polite 
indifference, — he would find grief luxurious in 

283 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



consecrating to Catherine yet another night of 
memories and sighs. 

But their private talk soon ended, and they 
came out from the cabin; and the rest was 
a comedy of compliments played to a gaping 
gallery. There was a great banquet ; and when 
the party broke up, the Empress took the 
King's hat from the attendant who was holding 
it for him, and gave it to him with her own 
hands. " Twice to cover my head ! " he ex- 
claimed, with a gallant allusion to his crown. 
" Ah, madam ! this is heaping too many bene- 
fits, too many claims to gratitude, upon me." 
And then there was another display of fireworks. 
" A representation of Vesuvius," says the 
Prince de Ligne, " lasting the whole night that 
we lay at anchor, lighted up the mountains, the 
plains, and the river better than the brightest 
sun at midday, or, I should say, kindling all 
nature to a blaze. We did not know that it 
was night." And then the dawn broke, and 
Poniatowski took his sensibility and melancholy 
back to Poland, and the travellers resumed the 
progress, which Potemkin continued to stage- 
manage with the same industrious ingenuity as 
before. 

Stage-manage is, indeed, the word ; for 
many of the glories of the Empire which the 
stage-manager pointed out to the party were 
" properties " in the narrow theatrical sense. 
He wished to give his Empress the impression 
that her country was populous and prosperous, 
284 



THE PAGEANT OF RUSSIA 

and he did so. The villages which he indi- 
cated on the distant horizon were " property " 
villages of painted canvas. The villages on the 
banks of the river were improvised villages, in- 
habited by temporary villagers, who, as soon 
as the party had passed, were driven round by 
a circuitous route to figure as the flourishing 
and contented inhabitants of another village 
farther on the way. Even the roads, where 
the progress was by land, were expressly made 
for the purpose of the journey — and so badly 
made as practically to cease to exist as soon 
as they had served their purpose ; while the 
shops in the towns were stocked with mer- 
chandise commandeered from other shops 
elsewhere — supplied on credit, but never to be 
returned or paid for. In some places, too, a 
false appearance of plenty was given by a 
display of bags of sand which were passed off as 
sacks of wheat. 

Similarly at Kherson. Potemkin had pre- 
pared Catherine a throne there at a cost of 
forty thousand roubles ; but the palaces in 
which she was lodged, there and in the neigh- 
bourhood, were only finished just in time for 
her arrival, and allowed to fall into ruins im- 
mediately after her departure. She found 
gardens, too, which had been wildernesses a 
few weeks before, and would be wildernesses 
again a few weeks later ; and she was driven 
past " property " countiy seats ; and she saw 
" supers," habited as merchants, making be- 

285 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



lieve to drive a roaring trade in goods brought, to 
delude her, from Warsaw and Moscow ; while, 
at Sebastopol, she was invited to review an 
imaginary fleet, composed of superannuated 
merchant vessels, rigged and equipped to look 
like men-of-war. Potemkin, in short, acted 
throughout on the maxim : Imperatrix vult 
decipi — decipiatur. 

So far as she was concerned, the deception 
was complete. There were those who saw 
through it ; but Catherine was not one of 
them. Her commander-in-chief surlily re- 
marked, when blamed for some defect in the 
arrangements, that his business was to capture 
towns, not to dress their shop-windows ; but 
she did not take his meaning. Joseph n., 
when received at Kherson, drew the attention 
of M. de Segur to the mise-en-scene, saying that 
it reminded him of the magical creations of the 
Arabian Nights, of a dream which vanished 
when the sleeper woke. Catherine woke, more 
or less, from her dream in the end, and dis- 
covered that her Empire had been almost re- 
duced to bankruptcy in order to make a pleasant 
holiday for her ; but no one roused her from it 
at the moment. She reviewed troops and dis- 
tributed decorations ; she launched ships and 
founded cities ; she gave banquets and was 
entertained by fireworks ; she drove under a 
triumphal arch inscribed : " This way to Con- 
stantinople." The peasants abased themselves 
in the dust before her, lying prostrate, with 
286 



THE PAGEANT OF RUSSIA 



their noses on the ground, and not daring to 
look up till she had driven by ; and she was 
fully persuaded that all was for the best in the 
best of all possible Empires. 

Joseph ii. asked M. de Segur what he 
thought of it all ; and the Ambassador made 
no secret of his impressions. " There is a good 
deal more show than solid reality," he said ; 
and he continued — 

" They begin everything here, but they never 
finish anything. Potemkin soon abandons the 
tasks which he initiates with such enthusiasm. 
None of his projects mature or are followed up. 
At Ekaterinaslav, he has laid the foundation 
stone of a capital which no one will ever inhabit ; 
and of a church, as large as St. Peter's at Rome, 
in which, I dare say, no mass will ever be said. 
The site which he has chosen for the new city 
which is to be called after Catherine is a hill 
with a beautiful view, but without drinking 
water. Kherson, too, is badly placed, and has 
cost the lives of twenty thousand men. It is 
surrounded by pestilential marshes, and fully 
loaded vessels cannot enter the harbour. A vast 
amount of trouble has been taken to make 
everything look impressive while the Empress 
is here ; but all the marvels will disappear as 
soon as she has gone." 

To which the Emperor assented, with 
qualifications, adding that what puzzled him 

287 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



was that an Empress " so proud and so sensitive 
about her glory " should show herself so foolishly- 
indulgent with " that spoiled child Mamonof." 
She actually, he complained, allowed the pre- 
posterous young man to join her whist-party 
when she was entertaining " persons of dignity 
and importance." Nor was that all — 

" She even permitted the young idiot," the 
Emperor grumbled, " to take the chalk with 
which these Russians mark the score and draw 
caricatures on the cloth ; and she actually ex- 
pected us all to sit still and wait till he had 
finished before going on with the game." 

But Joseph, nevertheless, as has been told, 
gave Mamonof a gold watch, and made him a 
Count of the Holy Roman Empire. He was far 
too pompous a potentate to find the Bohemian 
gaiety congenial. He thought of Mamonof much 
as a great lady thinks of the impudent barmaid 
or chorus-girl whom a nobleman of her ac- 
quaintance has been weak enough to marry. 
But he tried not to spoil sport more than he 
could help, and entered into the spirit of the 
conversation, to the best of his ability, by 
chaffing the Prince de Ligne about the gallan- 
tries of his youth: "Do you know, madam, 
that he was in love with my father's mistress, 
and prevented me from succeeding with a 
marquise, lovely as an angel, who was the first 
passion of both of us ? " 
288 



THE CRIMEA 



That was his principal contribution to the 
merriment. Having made it — and having also 
talked politics which do not concern us — he gave 
Mamonof a gold watch, and withdrew to his 
own dominions. The others were merrier than 
ever after he had gone. Catherine invited 
them to play proverbs with her in her bedroom. 
She told them, for fun, to 66 tutoyer " her, and 
they called her " ta Majeste." She asked them 
for stories ; and more than one of them forgot 
his manners. M. de Segur told a story which, 
he admits, was " just a little . . ." ; and he 
was surprised to find that the Empress received 
it without a smile, and abruptly changed the 
subject. The Prince de Ligne got into still more 
serious trouble. 

He had hidden behind bushes in order to spy 
upon some Mussulman women who were unveil- 
ing themselves to bathe ; and, seeing that the 
Empress looked dull, he told her of his adventure, 
with the idea that it would cheer her up. But 
Catherine turned on him with severe indignation — 

" Gentlemen," she said, " this pleasantry 
is in very bad taste, and sets a very bad ex- 
ample. You are in the midst of a people con- 
quered by my arms ; and I propose that their 
laws, their religion, their morals, and their 
prejudices shall be respected. If I had been 
told this story without being told who was the 
hero of it, I should certainly not have suspected 
any of you. I should have concluded, rather, that 
t 289 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



some of my pages had been guilty of the escapade ; 
and I should have punished them severely." 

The story is important as a proof that the 
tone of the Court was not quite what one might 
have been tempted to suppose. There are other 
stories, it is true, from which other inferences 
might be drawn. Potemkin, it is said, once paid 
his too ardent addresses to a lady-in-waiting, 
in the bedroom adjoining Catherine's ; and it 
is further related that Catherine, being aroused 
from her slumbers by the lady's screams, scolded 
the lady-in-waiting for disturbing her " for 
such a trifle." But that story may not be 
true ; and it is, at any rate, clear that Catherine, 
even when she flaunted her favourites in the 
public eye, considered certain kinds of decorum 
essential to her dignity. 

She sometimes liked horse-play and buf- 
foonery. Potemkin, as has been related, first 
attracted her favourable attention through his 
talents as a low comedian. The Grand Equerry, 
Narishkin, was a lower comedian than Pot- 
emkin, and without his brains; but there was 
no courtier whose company she found more 
agreeable. His chief feat during the excursion 
under review was to spin a top on the table at 
which the royal party was sitting. It was a top 
as big as a man's head, and it contained an 
explosive. It burst ; and the fragments flew 
into the faces of the diplomatists who were 
admiring it. If we could imagine the late Dan 
290 



THE CRIMEA 



Leno, in the reign of the late Queen Victoria, 
playing such a practical joke at the expense of 
the late Lord Salisbury, at Osborne or Balmoral, 
the analogy would help us. 

Decidedly Catherine was a hoyden at her 
hours, and still had hoydenish moods at the age 
of fifty-eight ; but she had one way of unbend- 
ing with her favourites and another way of un- 
bending with her friends. Provocative pictures 
— nude Cupids and the like — stimulated her 
imagination, and her favourite's imagination, 
in the alcove ; but she knew better than to 
imperil her dignity by loose talk — understanding 
that such talk levels social barriers in a way in 
which mere romping does not. Liberties could 
be taken with her, but not every kind of liberty, 
though she was quick to forgive a liberty for 
which proper apologies were offered ; and she had 
views of her own as to the limits within which, 
and the persons between whom, it was permissible 
to ignore the conventional code of morality. 

She lived as she chose, and she saw no 
reason why Potemkin should not do the same. 
We shall note, in a moment, the latitude which 
Potemkin allowed himself in this respect — 
the contemptuous disregard which he showed 
for the forbidden degrees of the Church which 
had so nearly had him for one of its monks. 
Here it suffices to note his obliging anxiety 
to help M. de Segur to divert himself. The 
Ambassador, admiring the beauty of a Cir- 
cassian woman, remarked that she was the per- 

291 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 

feet image of Mme de Segur. " She pleases 
you ? " said the Prince. " Very well. I 
happen to know that she is for sale ; so I will 
buy her and give her to you." And when M. 
de Segur declined his offer, he attributed his 
refusal, not to moral scruples, but to false 
shame, and a reluctance to lie under so great 
an obligation to him : a point of view which 
contrasts glaringly with some acts of severity 
ascribed to Catherine, who required the recall 
of a British Ambassador — Sir George Macartney 
— because he had overstepped the boundaries 
of circumspection in his relations with one of 
the maids-of -honour. 

But that is a digression ; and we must 
revert to the relation of the journey. The 
return was by way of Pultava and Moscow; 
and we will take our glimpses of the spectacle 
from the pages of the Prince de Ligne — 

" For the last two months," he writes, " I 
have been throwing money out of window. . . . 
I have already distributed some millions, and 
this is how it is done. Beside me, in the 
carriage, is a great green bag, like the one 
you will put your prayer-books in when you 
become devout. This bag is filled with im- 
perials — coins of four ducats. The inhabitants 
of the villages and those from ten, fifteen, and 
twenty leagues round line our route to see the 
Empress, and this is how they see her. A 
good quarter of an hour before she passes, they 
292 



THE CRIMEA 



lie down fiat on their stomachs and do not 
rise for a quarter of an hour after we have 
passed. 'Tis on their backs and on their heads, 
kissing the earth, that I shower a rain of gold 
while passing at full gallop, and this usually 
happens ten times a day. My hands are soiled 
with my beneficence. I have become the Grand 
Almoner of All the Russias. He of France 
throws money also through his window, but 
it is his own." 

There follows a comment on the stage- 
management — - 

" I know very well how much of it is trickery : 
for example, the Empress, who cannot rush 
about on foot as we do, is made to believe that 
certain towns for which she has given money 
are finished; whereas they are towns without 
streets, streets without houses, and houses 
without roofs, doors, or windows. Nothing is 
shown to the Empress but shops well built of 
stone, colonnades of the palaces of Governors- 
General, to forty-two of which she has pre- 
sented silver services of a hundred covers." 

The writer adds, in another letter, that, 
wherever the imperial travellers banqueted, 
they invariably brought their own table linen, 
and as regularly left it behind — for the benefit 
of one knows not whom. He goes on to tell 
us that 4t all the carriages are filled with peaches 
and oranges, and our valets are drunk with 

293 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



champagne " ; but then, at Moscow, his tone 
suddenly changes. Catherine had never been 
popular at Moscow. " There may," she said, 
" have been misunderstandings ; " and Mos- 
cow, at any rate, had been the nursery of 
some intrigues against her, and was the place 
of residence of discarded functionaries and 
favourites — " fine ruins," as the Prince com- 
mented, when some of them were presented 
to him, and he was asked what he thought of 
them. Moreover, at Moscow Catherine learnt 
the truth — or at least a portion of it: learnt, 
that is to say, that her Empire had a seamy 
side which had not been shown to her — 

" Alexis Orlof had the courage to tell Her 
Imperial Majesty that famine had appeared in 
several of the provinces. The fetes were stopped. 
Beneficence displaced magnificence. Luxury 
yielded to necessity. No more money was 
thrown ; it was now distributed. The torrents 
of champagne ceased flowing ; thousands of 
bread-carts succeeded the boat-loads of oranges. 
A cloud obscured, for a moment, the august and 
serene brow of Catherine the Great : she shut 
herself up with two of her Ministers, and only 
recovered her gaiety as she got into the carriage." 

And so back, at last, to St. Petersburg, where 
the reign of Mamonof, of whom we have found so 
little to say, was presently to come to an end. 



294 



CHAPTER XXVI 



Retirement ofj Mamonof and Accession of Plato Zubof 

In the story of the deposition of Mamonof, 
human nature once more flashes out amid the 
splendid artificialities of Court life. It reads 
like a play ; and a play has in fact been made 
of it — a piece called The Favourites, written 
by Mme Birch - Pfeiffer, produced at Berlin 
in 1831, and suppressed in consequence of 
remonstrances from the Russian Embassy. 
There was hardly any need for the author to 
alter, supplement, or embellish the facts, as 
we get them presented in Catherine's own 
letters and authentic contemporary memoirs. 
The theme, albeit with a variation or two, is 
the old one : May mated with December, and 
tiring of the union ; December more ardent 
than May, and unable to understand, until a 
sudden revelation lets in the light, why May 
is so sad and irresponsive. 

Catherine, when the crisis came, was over 
sixty, and Mamonof was approximately thirty. 
She had enriched him, and ennobled him, and 
made much of him ; she had paid his debts 

295 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



with a lavish hand, even when the Treasury 
was at its emptiest ; so far as she could see, 
he had nothing whatever to complain of. But 
the caged bird always longs for freedom, how- 
ever gaudily the cage is gilded ; and May 
mated to December is always longing to turn 
back and throw the handkerchief to April. 
Mamonof, in short, had little to complain 
of except that Catherine had passed her 
sixtieth birthday before he had passed his 
thirtieth ; but that was a sufficient cause of 
discontent : the more so as he was expected 
always to be on duty — always to be dancing 
attendance. 

He would probably have said that Catherine 
was 66 well enough " — a charming woman to 
know on the terms on which Segur, and Fitz- 
Herbert, and Cobentzel, and the Prince de 
Ligne knew her ; but he knew her, and was 
known to know her, on quite other terms. 
She made him ridiculous — more and more 
ridiculous as the years went by ; and ridicule 
is fatal to romance. He had never had the 
nerve, or the cynicism, to exploit his relations 
with her — he had only been weak ; and he 
grew tired of wasting the best years of his 
life as an old woman's darling. He wanted 
an adventure in which his heart should be 
engaged. His feelings were reflected in his 
manner, and Catherine had to take notice. 

Jealousy was the card she played — not 
displaying jealousy, but trying to arouse it. 
296 



FALL OF MAMONOF 



She named names, and threw out dark hints. 
There was a certain Kazarinof — there might 
be others. If Mamonof imagined that he was 
the only man in the world who . . . etc. . . . 
But when a woman of sixty talks like that, 
one knows that her heart is more uneasy than 
capricious. If Catherine had really had a 
fresh caprice, she would have acted on it with 
as little ceremony as usual. Mamonof would 
have received notice that his place was filled, 
and that his retiring allowance would be — 
whatever she chose to fix, though something very 
liberal, we may be sure. As it was, her lover 
sulked, and feigned illness ; and the overtures 
for reconciliation came from her. But she had 
her suspicions ; and she confided them to her 
secretary Chrapowicki — 

"Have you heard what has been going 
on?" 

" Yes, madam." 

" I have been suspecting it for a whole 
eight months. He kept away from everybody ; 
he avoided even me. He said he had heart 
trouble, and couldn't leave his room. Then 
he said that he was troubled by scruples of 
conscience, and could not go on living with 
me as he had done. The traitor ! He loved 
another, and his duplicity kept him dumb. 
If his passion had really mastered him, why 
couldn't he speak out and say so ? You can- 
not imagine what I have suffered." 

297 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



It seems amazing that an Empress of sixty- 
should have talked like that to her political 
secretary ; but we have to do with facts. 
The report of her speech is taken from Chrapo- 
wicki's Diary. She went on to tell her queerly 
chosen confidant how, after suspecting a portion 
of the truth, she had dragged the whole of it 
to light. 

Mamonof's sulks and indifference had set 
her thinking. An idea had occurred to her, 
and she had resolved to bring matters to a 
head. Since her lover was tired of the gilded 
cage, he should leave it. She herself would 
show him out, and arrange his destiny after his 
retreat — or, at all events, she would propose 
to do so, and see what he said. 

" I wrote him a note suggesting that he had 
better retire, and showing him how he could 
do so with brilliant prospects. I had an idea 
of arranging a marriage for him with the 
daughter of Countess Bruce. She is only 
thirteen ; but I know that she is already a 
woman, fully grown." 

One can only guess what was at the back 
of Catherine's brain : whether she expected 
Mamonof to accept or to refuse ; whether 
she wished to take the initiative in a separation 
which she realised to be inevitable, or looked 
forward and saw herself as the child-wife's 
successful rival. Evidently, she was in a 
298 



FALL OF MAMONOF 



desperate mood, and ready for desperate 
measures. Whatever she expected, it did not 
happen ; for Mamonof had a surprise in store 
for her— 

" Thereupon, he ran to me and, in trembling 
accents, confessed that he was in love with 
the little Cherbatof, and had been engaged 
to be married to her for the last six months. 
Picture my feelings ! " 

They are not hard to picture. The spreice 
injuria formce is doubtless as painful on a throne 
as in humbler stations of life. Mamonof was 
the third lover — the third, if not the fourth — 
who had inflicted the affront. And Catherine 
was sixty-two — an age at which every moment 
is precious and no time can be wasted. She 
must make haste to play her part, making it 
appear to the world that she had willed the 
separation which she could not avoid. Already 
she had made her choice ; now she confirmed 
it ; and the secretary perceived for what 
reason she had called him into her counsel 
and wept over her griefs to him. 

She was giving him audience in her bed- 
chamber ; and she now handed him a ring, and 
a bag containing notes for ten thousand roubles. 
The bag was to be placed under the pillow of the 
bed which was, as it were, the Downing Street 
of Favourites ; the ring was to be handed to 
young Plato Zubof, aged twenty-two. "He is 

299 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



a young man of good manners," wrote Bez- 
borodko to Vorontsof, " but of very poor in- 
telligence. I don't think he will hold his place 
long." He was to hold it, in fact, as long as 
there was such a place to be held by any man ; 
he was to exploit it as Mamonof could not, and 
to triumph over ridicule by his immeasurable 
insolence. But of that presently. The story of 
the parting from Mamonof has to be finished 
before we come to it. 

A barbarous story has been told of Cather- 
ine's vengeance. Six men, disguised as women, 
burst, it is said, into the bridal chamber, stripped 
the bride of her nightdress, and birched her 
in the bridegroom's presence, saying, when 
they had finished the infliction of the dis- 
cipline, " This is the way the Empress 
punishes a first indiscretion. For the second, 
people are sent to Siberia." That anecdote, 
however, though in keeping with Russian 
manners and customs, is not in keeping with 
what we know of Catherine, or with what we 
know of the facts of this particular case. If 
the thing was done at all, it must have been 
done without her knowledge, — at the instance, 
possibly, of Mamonof s insolent successor, — and 
even that is improbable. Catherine was very 
feminine, but she w r as not a Fury ; and there 
is no record of her having ever punished an 
infidelity otherwise thau by reprisals. 

Her rival, being one of her maids - of - 
honour, was married from the Palace ; and 
300 



MARRIAGE OF MAMONOF 



Catherine herself, according to the custom, 
helped to dress her for the ceremony. The 
story that she contrived to make her scream by 
running a large pin into her in the process may 
or may not be true. It is not a serious matter, 
and would indicate pique rather than rancour. 
The wedding presents, at any rate, were on a 
generous scale. It was intimated to Mamonof 
that he must leave St. Petersburg and live at 
Moscow among the " magnificent ruins " re- 
marked in that city by the Prince de Ligne ; 
but he was given a hundred thousand roubles 
and three thousand serfs. Moreover, Catherine 
continued to correspond with him ; and, both 
before and after the installation of Zubof in his 
place, she caressed the belief that, in spite of 
appearances, he loved her still. 

" Every one is amazed," the secretary 
ventured to say, " that your Majesty should 
have consented to the marriage." 

" God be with them," Catherine replied. 
" I hope they will be happy. But, observe. I 
have forgiven them. I have authorised their 
union. They ought to be in a perfect ecstasy of 
delight. But they are not. I have seen them 
both in tears. His old affection for me is not 
dead. For the last week, I have observed his eyes 
following me wherever I go. Strange, isn't it ? " 

Perhaps it was not so strange. Most likely 
Catherine had misread the meaning of the signs 

301 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



which she had observed. Most likely what 
she took for tenderness was really nervousness 
and apprehension. But the touch is very 
feminine — very full of human nature. It 
marks the great difference between the amours 
of Catherine and those of Louis xv. — the differ- 
ence, in fact, between sentiment and sensuality. 
There is another feminine touch in the letter 
written to Grimm soon after Mamonof's de- 
parture. Catherine, we now see, is not angry 
with Mamonof, but sorry for him because he 
has gained no adequate compensation for the 
tenderness which he has lost — 

" The pupil of Mile Cardel, having found 
Master Red Coat more worthy of her pity 
than of her indignation, and believing that he 
will be terribly punished as long as he lives 
by an absurd passion which has made people 
laugh at him and denounce him as ungrateful, 
has made all possible haste to wind the matter 
up, to the satisfaction of every one concerned. 
There is every reason to believe that he and his 
wife are not getting on very well together." 

We can lay our fingers on one of the reasons, 
and very possibly it was the only one. It 
appears in a letter which Mamonof wrote to 
Catherine in December 1792. He was unhappy, 
he said. It pained him to be separated from her. 
She had been very good to him, but — might he not 
return to St. Petersburg in order to be near her ? 
302 



ZUBOF 



Catherine was delighted, and not in the 
least surprised. " You see. He is unhappy. 
I knew he would be," she said to the secretary, 
who had placed the bag of roubles under 
Zubof's pillow. It was no part of that young 
man's business to contradict her ; but her 
biographer may nevertheless have his doubts, 
and suspect that the appeal was the bitter 
cry not of the lover but of the exile. Moscow 
was dull, and Mamonof sighed for the livelier 
excitements of St. Petersburg. He wanted a 
passport, and this was the way of asking for it 
most likely to meet with a favourable response. 
One gathers from the sequel that the request 
was only half-hearted after all. 

There was a feminine touch of hesitation 
in Catherine's reply. She neither consented 
nor refused — she procrastinated. Mamonof 
should come to see her some day — next year, 
perhaps, if she did not change her mind — but 
not at present. There were reasons — the 
principal reason, no doubt, was young Zubof ; 
but she took the tone, at sixty-three, of a 
woman sure of her lover, but afraid of her own 
weakness. " To stroll in the garden with him 
for an hour or two — that would be well enough," 
she said to Chrapowicki ; " but to have him 
always with me — that is another matter al- 
together." So she put him off, and told him to 
spend another year among the " ruins." 

At the end of the year she beckoned ; but 
though she had not changed her mind, Mamonof 

303 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



had changed his. He would not come, and one 
can guess his reasons. Zubof had had time to 
show himself strong as well as unscrupulous 
and insolent ; and Mamonof had no desire to 
make himself ridiculous. He had plenty of 
roubles and adequate estates ; and he pre- 
ferred a quiet life, even at the cost of permanent 
exclusion from the capital. 

So Zubof reigned in his stead, and reigned 
far more completely. Mamonof had been 
Potemkin's docile nominee ; but Zubof was 
Potemkin's formidable rival — undermining his 
influence and threatening his overthrow. All 
through the years which we have been passing 
under review, Potemkin had been ruling 
Russia, either through Catherine's favourites or 
over their heads ; and we will return to Potemkin 
before filling up the picture of Zubof s ascend- 
ancy. 



1$ 

304 



CHAPTER XXVII 



Zubof and Potemkin — The great Stage-Managers of Catherine's 
Empire — Particularities of Potemkin' s Private Life 

Potemkin is, of all the men of Catherine's 
reign, the hardest to believe in — and that 
though one can collect more information about 
him than about any of the others. Judging 
him by results, we are bound to pronounce him 
a man of genius ; but that phrase is vague — a 
formula rather than a picture. It still leaves 
the Western mind wondering how such results 
could have been achieved by such a man : a 
man whose personal eccentricities and apparent 
slackness, superimposed upon the eccentricities of 
the Slav, impress one as a Pelion of absurdity 
heaped upon an Ossa of barbarism. His 
Western contemporaries were agreed that he 
would have come to no good in any Western 
State. M. de Segur says as much in so many 
words. But M. de Segur also admits that, in 
Russia, he was marvellous. Let us glance back, 
even at the risk of repetition, and see how his 
career differed from the careers of the men who 
preceded and succeeded him in Catherine's 
gilded cage. 

u 305 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



To begin with, he started with an unfavour- 
able handicap, being the least prepossessing of 
the suitors. As a rule, Catherine chose her 
lovers not for their intelligence but for their 
good looks ; and Potemkin was ugly — an un- 
kempt giant, of brusque, uncourtly manners, — 
with only one eye, and a squint in it, — ridiculed 
by the handsome Gregory Orlof as " Cyclops." 
Yet Catherine deposed an Adonis to make 
room for him — and did so at his instigation. 
He may not have been the only man who ever 
formally applied for the post of favourite. 
There is a story of an officer who once hid 
himself behind the curtains in Catherine's bed- 
chamber in the hope of declaring his passion at 
an opportune moment in auspicious circum- 
stances. That intruder, however, was turned 
out (if the story be true) and sent home to his 
mother, with a request that she would take 
better care of him for the future. Potemkin, as 
we have seen, asked for the position of ' ' general 
aide-de-camp" — much as another officer might 
have asked for a staff appointment — and got it. 
One may distinguish him, therefore, in the first 
place, as the favourite who imposed himself. 

One may distinguish him, in the second 
place, as the favourite whose preferment was 
only a lower rung on the ladder of ambition. 
The others, having climbed so high, aspired to 
climb no higher. Having adorned the gilded 
cage, they were content, thereafter, to adorn 
private stations, living their own lives, with 
306 



POTEMKIN 



wives of their own choice, and plenty of money 
in their pockets. Potemkin looked beyond. 
He had been favourite but a short time when he 
aspired to be Emperor. When the question 
of his retirement was first raised, he talked of 
demanding the crown of Poland as the condition 
of his retreat ; and, in the end, he manoeuvred 
himself into a position akin to that of Warwick 
the King-maker — the nominator of his own 
successors, strong enough to depose them when 
they crossed his path, and the real ruler of 
Russia in everything except the name. 

And that for a period of some seventeen 
years, though his personal tenure of the office 
of favourite lasted for less than two years. The 
others came and went : Zavadovski, Zoritch, 
Korsakof, Lanskoi, Yermolof , Mamonof ; and 
throughout the reign of every one of them 
Potemkin continued to be the power behind the 
throne. When Yermolof intrigued against him, 
he flicked Yermolof away like an insect. Not 
until Zubof arose did he encounter a rival whose 
rivalry threatened to be formidable ; and that 
tussle was ended not by his defeat but by his 
death. And by that time, he was rich beyond 
the dreams of avarice, — the number of his 
roubles being computed at 50,000,000, — had 
achieved every distinction that it was in 
Catherine's power to bestow, and looked down 
not upon Russia only but upon Europe, from 
sublime heights of arrogance, like those heroes 
of Greek tragedy whom jealous Fate destroys. 

307 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



The Prince de Ligne asked him once whether 
he would like to be Hospodar of Moldavia and 
Wallachia. " Pooh ! " he replied. " What sort 
of a position is that ? Why, I could be King 
of Poland if I liked, and I have already de- 
clined to be Duke of Courland. The position 
I occupy is of more account than any of those." 
Another time, apropos of nothing, he said to one 
of the Engelharts, with the arrogant melancholy 
of the man who has earned his title to decide 
whether all is vanity or not — 

" I wonder. Could a man be more fortunate 
than I have been ? All my wishes have been 
fulfilled — all my desires gratified — as if by 
magic. I sought positions of great responsi- 
bility — I have held them. I wanted Orders — 
they have been showered upon me. I loved 
gambling — I have been privileged to lose in- 
calculable sums. I liked to entertain — I have 
entertained magnificently. I wanted to buy 
land — I own as much land as a man could 
wish for. I wanted to build houses — I have 
been able to build palaces. I have always 
been fond of jewellery — no private individual 
in the world has such a collection of jewels 
as I have. In short, I have been overwhelmed 
with Fortune's favours." 

He concluded the monologue by smashing a 
costly piece of porcelain and retiring to lock 
himself up in his room, as if disgusted with 
his surfeit of good things. One may cite the 
308 



POTEMKIN 



mood, as Mr. Belloc has cited the later moods 
of Louis xv., as an example of 46 the despair 
which follows the satisfaction of the flesh " ; 
but one cannot charge him with magnifying 
his grandeur and glories. He only stated facts. 
He had really climbed to the pinnacle to which 
he pointed, and had kept his place on it ; 
and he had done so without displaying con- 
spicuous competence in his more important 
undertakings, and with complete disregard of 
the rules ordinarily laid down for the attainment 
of success in life. One cannot picture him walk- 
ing by a straight path to a great end. The im- 
pression is rather of a man swaggering insolently 
to his goal by any road which it suits his whim 
to take — a Superman, in short, perfectly sure 
of himself, and therefore absolutely careless 
of criticism, indifferent to opinion, and as 
recklessly self-indulgent as the most unabashed 
voluptuary. 

We have spoken of him as a great stage- 
manager. He sometimes reminds one of the 
late Sir Augustus Harris, who was also, in his 
way, a man of genius. If we could imagine 
the late Sir Augustus Harris entrusted with a 
task more proper to Lord Kitchener, tackling 
it with supreme self-confidence, not in Lord 
Kitchener's way but in his own, conducting 
a campaign on the lines of a Drury Lane panto- 
mime, and making at least a spectacular success 
of it, we should have a partially accurate 
portrait of him. But the portrait would only 

309 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



be partial. On the other hand, we have to 
think of Potemkin as a modern Russian ana- 
logue of Xerxes : a sort of self-made Xerxes, 
exaggerating the Persian monarch's sloth and 
love of pleasure, yet with an ample fund of 
latent energy, capable of rising to an occa- 
sion, and rushing from his headquarters 
in Capua to distinguish himself at the post 
of danger. 

Stories of his insolent manners abound ; 
but they generally end with some indication 
that he meant no harm, was only " off-handed," 
and bore no malice when his brusque manners 
were resented. Once, he invited the French 
Ambassador to dinner ; and when the guest, 
as a matter of course, arrived in his uniform 
and decorations, the host slopped late into 
the room, and took his place at the head of 
the table in morning dress and slippered ease. 
But when M. de Segur returned his invitation, 
and deliberately received him with an equal 
lack of ceremony, he laughed good-humouredly 
and admitted that the score was fair. On 
another occasion, he interrupted an audience 
which he was giving to M. de Segur in order 
to converse with his tailor and other tradesmen, 
and the Ambassador withdrew indignantly, de- 
clining to leave any memorandum of requests 
so cavalierly received ; but he afterwards learnt 
that Potemkin had carefully attended to the 
whole conversation, and taken instant steps to 
comply with his demands. 
310 



POTEMKIN 



Nor are stories less numerous of the luxury 

— not to say the debauchery — prevailing at 
his military headquarters. At his headquarters 
at Bender, for instance, in 1791, his estab- 
lishment included five or six hundred domestic 
servants, two hundred musicians, a troupe of 
actors, and twenty jewellers. He even sent 
an invitation (though it was not accepted) to 
Mozart to join him, at a lavish salary, as pianist 
and musical director. Conceiving the desire to 
see the " tzigane " danced, and being informed 
that two officers in the army of the Caucasus 
danced it particularly well, he summoned them 

— a whole week's journey — in order to give 
their performance, and recompensed them for 
their foolery by promoting them to field rank. 
At another time, in the midst of some exciting 
operations of war, he dispatched two officers 
of his staff on fantastic errands : the one to 
fetch perfumes from Florence, and the other 
to buy jewels in Paris. We read, too, of fetes 
given at his headquarters, at which every one 
of the two hundred ladies present was given 
a costly shawl, and invited to help herself 
from a crystal goblet filled with diamonds ; 
while another graphic description of those 
headquarters runs as follows : — 

" There he sat, entirely given over to love, 
like a veritable Sultan in the midst of his harem. 
. . . The apartment was divided into two parts. 
In the outer room, the men played cards ; 

311 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



while in the inner room, the Prince sat on a 
sofa with the ladies, turning his back on all 
of them except Princess Dolgoruki, whose place 
was close to the wall, and often appearing to 
forget that he was not alone with her." 

It is related, too, that he hardly ever mounted 
a horse, but, when he visited the lines, drove 
round them in a carriage ; and there is a story 
of his having sent an indignant message to the 
general commanding the artillery to inquire 
what he meant by making such a disgust- 
ing noise with his guns. Such proceedings, 
it will be agreed, do not, in a general 
way, conduce to military efficiency ; but 
Potemkin was only relatively inefficient, and 
his luxurious indolence must have been largely 
affectation. Just as when giving audience to 
M. de Segur, so when lounging on the sofa 
with the ladies, he was wider awake than he 
seemed to be. On the whole, he knew what 
was going on. He could wake up, and risk 
his life in the trenches without moving a 
muscle when cannon-balls mowed down the 
men to whom he was talking. He could order 
a victory, or the capture of a fortress, with no 
more ado than if he had been ordering a dinner 
■ — and he could take the credit, though Suvarof 
did the work. 

Our completest picture of him at this period 
is from the graphic pen of the Prince de 
Ligne — 
312 



POTEMKIN 



"I see the commander of an army, who 
seems to be lazy, and works without ceasing ; 
who has no desk but his knees, no comb but 
his fingers ; always in bed and never sleep- 
ing, day or night, because his ardour for his 
sovereign, whom he adores, incessantly agitates 
him. . . . Unhappy because so fortunate ; blase 
about everything, easily disgusted ; morose, 
inconstant ; a profound philosopher, able 
minister, splendid politician, child of ten years 
old . , . with one hand giving proofs of his 
liking for women, with the other making signs 
of the cross ; his arms in crucifix at the feet 
of the Virgin, or round the necks of those who, 
thanks to him, have ceased to be virgins . . . ; 
gambling incessantly, or else never touching a 
card ; preferring to give rather than pay his 
debts ; enormously rich, yet without a penny 
. . . ; talking theology to his generals, and war 
to his archbishops ; never reading, but picking 
the brains of those with whom he talks, and 
contradicting them in order to learn more ; 
presenting the most brutal or the most pleasing 
aspect, manners the most repulsive or the 
most attractive ; with the mien of the proudest 
satrap of the Orient, or the cringing air of 
Louis xiv. 's courtiers . . . ; wanting all things 
like a child, able to go without everything like 
a great man ; sober with the air of a gourmand ; 
biting his nails, or munching apples or turnips, 
scolding or laughing, dissembling or swearing, 
playing or praying, singing or meditating . . . ; 

313 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



always in a shirt and no drawers, or else in a 
uniform embroidered on every seam ; feet bare 
or in spangled slippers, without cap or hat 
(as I saw him once under fire) ; in a shabby 
dressing-gown or a splendid tunic, with his 
three stars, ribbons, and diamonds as big as 
my thumb round the portrait of the Empress, 
which always attracts the bullets ; bent double, 
huddled up, when in his own room ; tall, his 
nose in the air, proud, handsome, noble, 
majestic, or seductive when he shows himself 
to his army with the air of an Agamemnon 
amid the kings of Greece." 

" What is his magic ? " the Prince asks 
himself, and his answer to his question is : 
" Genius, and then genius, and again genius. 1 ' 
No one else can say any more, unless it be to 
qualify and define the genius. It certainly 
cannot be define'd, in his case, as the power of 
taking infinite pains. It was far rather the 
power of making a very little pains go a very 
long way ; and it was, above everything, the 
power of an overwhelming personality — irre- 
sistible in spite of its limitations. Potemkin, 
in short, reminds one of a torrent, which does 
not always flow, but, when it does flow, sweeps 
all obstacles before it. Neither his mistakes 
nor his slackness — still less his excesses and 
dissolute levity — availed to impair his pre- 
dominance. He ruled in Russia, without refer- 
ence to these drawbacks, much as a grown 
314 



POTEMKIN 



person can assert ascendancy in a nursery, 
however eccentric his habits and however 
deplorable his morals. When he chose to fill 
the stage, there was no room on it for a rival, 
but only room for coadjutors. 

One cannot leave him, however, without a 
further reference to those eccentric morals, 
which would have hampered his progress in 
any country but Russia, but there did him 
little harm in the eyes either of the Empress 
or of her subjects. He ignored the forbidden 
degrees, as if laws were not made for him. 
" Barinka is very ill," Catherine once wrote to 
him. " If your departure is the cause of her 
illness, you are very wrong. You will kill 
her." And Barinka was Barbe Engelhart — 
Potemkin's niece — one of five nieces to whom 
he successively made love, albeit making love 
to various other women at the same time. 

Barbe was fickle and Potemkin was fickle 
too. Finding a love-letter, not in her hand- 
writing, in the pocket of that dressing-gown 
of which we have heard so much, she married 
Prince Galitzin ; but that was not the end. 
After the marriage, the quarrel was made up, 
and we find uncle and niece once more ad- 
dressing each other in their correspondence as 
" my treasure " and " my life." But Potemkin 
was already making love to Alexandrine, who 
was the wife of Count Branicki ; and he also 
paid his court, at undetermined dates, to 
Nadiejda, Catherine, and Tatiana ; and then 

315 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



came his passion for his cousin's wife, Prascovia 
Potemkin, to whom he wrote (a brief extract 
from the communication will suffice) — 

" Come to me, my mistress ! Make haste, 
my love, my joy, my priceless treasure — the 
unparalleled gift which God Himself has given 
me. I only live for you, and all my life shall 
be spent in proving my devotion to you. 
Darling, darling, let me have the delight of 
seeing you again ; grant me the joy which I 
derive from the beauty of your face and your 
soul. With all tenderness I kiss your pretty 
little hands and your pretty little feet." 

But even Prascovia Potemkin had two 
rivals — two rivals, if not more : the lady who 
afterwards became notorious as Countess Po- 
tocka, and the beautiful Princess Dolgoruki. 
In this last case there was an angry husband 
to be dealt with ; but Potemkin dealt with him. 
He gripped him, when he remonstrated, by 
the cordons of the distinguished Orders which 
he wore, and roared at him in a voice of thunder, 
" Miserable wretch ! I gave you these decora- 
tions, as I have given them to all those who 
wear them. You deserve them as little as the 
rest. You are dirt to me — one and all of you ; 
and I shall do what I like with you — and also 
with whatever belongs to you." And he with- 
drew, with the Princess, to the scenes of splendid 
luxury thus described by Langeron — 
316 



POTEMKIN 

64 The Prince," Langeron writes, "j had 
pulled down, during my absence, one of the 
apartments of the house he occupied, and had 
built a kiosk in which the treasures of two 
hemispheres were displayed for the temptation 
of the beauty he proposed to subject to his 
sway. Gold and silver glittered everywhere. 
On a sofa of rose and silver, fringed and em- 
broidered with flowers and ribbons, one saw 
the Prince, in costly neglige attire, seated beside 
the object of his devotion, in the midst of 
a court of five or six women, whose jewels 
heightened their charms, and before whom 
fragrant incense was burnt in golden vessels. 
A cold collation, served in precious porcelain 
dishes, stood in the centre of the room." 

There we may leave the picture, remarking 
merely that such a lover as we have described 
was obviously the last man in the world to 
submit to the restrictions of Catherine's gilded 
cage. As well might she have tried to catch 
a bear in a mouse-trap or keep a lion in an 
aviary. Naturally, being the man that he 
was, he was out of the cage almost as soon 
as he was confined in it ; and he was not 
in the least like the bird whose only use for 
freedom is to spread its wings and fly away. 
On the contrary, he used his freedom openly, 
shamelessly, and aggressively, in the ways 
which we have seen— living his own life while 
he served the State; and Catherine acquiesced, 

317 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



and even applauded, as her letter about Bar- 
inka proves. 

His devotion to her, however, survived his 
infidelity, though he insisted on showing it in his 
own way, and keeping it within the limits which 
he himself assigned. His determination that 
nothing should interfere with his polygamy 
was far firmer than her resolution that nothing 
should interfere with her polyandry ; and each 
of them came in the end to respect the ex- 
pansiveness of the other's ardent nature. From 
time to time Potemkin still gives us the im- 
pression of courting Catherine — albeit only 
with the air of a gallant who neither proposes 
nor expects to be embarrassed by being taken 
too seriously. The rumour got abroad, and 
(though there is almost certainly no truth in it) 
has been repeated by responsible chroniclers, 
that she had secretly married him. The 
authorship is attributed to him of a passionate 
love-song in the vein of " the desire of the moth 
for the star " ; and his letters to her (and her 
letters to him) are often of lyric intensity — 
albeit written at a time when he was notori- 
ously diverting himself with other women, and 
she with other men. 

The psychological situation, in short, is far 
too complex to be analysed — one can only state 
the facts and leave the puzzle unresolved. 
One may fancy that Catherine regretted the 
one lover who assuredly would have been her 
master if they had met on equal terms; over 
318 



POTEMKIN 



whom she had no superiority except the acci- 
dental one that she was a sovereign and he a 
subject; who could still dictate to her after he 
had ceased to be her lover, and never failed to 
do so with loyal zeal for her interests. One may 
attribute Potemkin's pessimism in the midst of 
his Sardanapalian revels to a secret hankering 
after the simpler satisfaction which he could, 
or believed that he could, have found in un- 
divided and disinterested love. But one can 
say nothing confidently except that his nature 
and hers were alike complex; that their moods 
varied ; that there is no escaping in either case 
from the impression of a multiple personality. 

That said, we may leave Potemkin and pass 
on to Zubof — the only one of the later favourites 
who was not Potemkin's creature, and who, 
instead of accepting Potemkin as his patron and 
master, set himself, with an arrogance which 
excited remark even in Russia, to open the 
world, his oyster, with his own sw r ord, and carve 
his way independently to the fortune of which 
he was ambitious. 



319 



CHAPTER XXVIII 



Return of Potemkin to St. Petersburg — Rumours of his 
Marriage to Catherine — His Death 

It was in 1789 that Zubof stepped into the place 
left vacant by Mamonof's marriage. Catherine 
was now sixty — an age at which a woman 
necessarily feels that, if she still owes a debt to 
sentiment, she must pay it at once, or never pay 
it at all. So she made haste, as we have seen, 
enthroning a new favourite, with enthusiasm — 
or, at all events, with an affectation of enthusi- 
asm : partly, one supposes, as a demonstration 
against Mamonof ; partly to convince herself, 
as well as those about her, that her heart was 
as young as ever. 

Potemkin received her confidences. " I have 
come back to life again," she wrote to him, " as 
a frozen fly does when it thaws. I am, as 
you see, once more well and cheerful." And she 
spoke of her new lover as " my child " and " my 
little darky," and went on : " the amiability of 
his character makes me more amiable too." 
The pleasant words were a challenge ; for the 
rule that Potemkin must be consulted in these 
matters had now been broken for the first time 
320 



ZUBOF 



for many years. But Potemkin made no move. 
Increasing years and riotous living had doubtless 
undermined his energy, though they had not 
impaired his self-confidence. He could not be 
troubled to make a fuss, assuming that, whenever 
he did rouse himself, he would be able to treat 
Zubof as he had treated Yermolof — flick him 
away, that is to say, as if he were some noxious 
insect. But that showed not only that he did 
not know Zubof, but even that he did not quite 
know Catherine. 

Zubof, at twenty-two, appeared to most 
people merely a good-looking young blockhead — 
" well mannered but of limited intelligence," 
wrote Bezborodko, already quoted ; but that 
was a mistake. His amiability was only a 
means to an end — a mask temporarily covering 
the arrogance of an insufferable puppy ; his 
strength lay neither in his amiability nor in 
his intellect, but in his will. He was sublimely 
unscrupulous and immovably obstinate ; and 
he had a low cunning which was a serviceable 
substitute for talent. He knew what he wanted, 
and knew how to get it ; he had audacity and 
nerve, and was not to be frightened from the 
course he meant to follow. Above all, he knew 
how to work upon an old woman's weakness, 
and make that weakness a buckler against his 
enemies. 

And Catherine, on her part, was at once 
weak and strong, being in love with love, and 
knowing that, at her age, it was easier to lose love 
x 321 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



than to recover it. Zubof at least made love 
to her charmingly, and she was grateful. There 
exists a note in her handwriting in which she 
tells Zubof that she is so glad she " pleased him 
last night." She enjoyed being girlish like 
that ; and she could not be sure that another 
lover would accept her girlishness in the same 
gay and gallant spirit. Hence, inevitably, a 
disposition to fight hard against any attempt 
to rob her of what might be her very last chance 
of rinding happiness in love. She might be 
lectured ; she might be laughed at ; but she 
would be firm. That, indubitably, was the 
sentiment behind which the last of her lovers 
was entrenched. The number of roubles 
amassed by him in his entrenchments is said 
to have been 3,500,000; and he was so little 
afraid of Potemkin that he set his brother 
Valerian as a spy to watch him at his head- 
quarters with the army, and laid all manner 
of unfavourable reports before Catherine as to 
his extravagance and incapacity. 

At last, however, in 1791, we see Potemkin 
roused from his apathy, and appearing in 
St. Petersburg; and, for a moment, we see 
Catherine's old enthusiasm for him revived — 

" To look at Marshal Potemkin," she wrote 
to the Prince de Ligne, " one would say that 
victories improve a man's appearance. He has 
come to us from the army, beautiful as the 
day, blithe as a bird, bright as a star, wittier 
322 



ZUBOF 



than ever, no longer biting his nails, but giving 
a series of entertainments, each more magnificent 
than its predecessor." 

It is to the period of these dazzling en- 
tertainments that gossip assigns the secret 
marriage. That Catherine may have consented 
to go through the ceremony is not absolutely 
unthinkable; and her Minister might have 
found some ground of satisfaction in such a 
secret assertion of his power over her, in spite 
of her relations with Zubof. It is not an 
ordinary attitude, but Potemkin was not an 
ordinary man ; still, there is no positive evidence, 
and the probability is strong that, if the thing 
had actually happened, other evidence than 
that of irresponsible gossip would, by this time, 
have come to light. So it is safer to be sceptical, 
and we may quit the subject with a glance at the 
glittering splendours of the reception which 
Potemkin gave in Catherine's honour on the eve 
of his return to the seat of war — 

" A whole month was consumed in prepara- 
tions. Artists of all kinds were employed, 
whole warehouses emptied. Several hundred 
persons attended daily to rehearse the re- 
spective parts they were to perform, and each 
rehearsal was a kind of entertainment. . . . 

" The company began to assemble in mas- 
querade dresses at six in the evening. 
When the carriage of the Empress approached, 

323 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



meat, drink, and clothes were profusely dis- 
tributed among the populace assembled at 
the outer doors. The Prince handed the 
Empress from her coach. He was dressed in a 
scarlet coat, over which hung a long cloak of 
gold lace, ornamented with precious stones. 
He wore as many diamonds as a man can wear 
in his dress. His hat, in particular, was so 
loaded with them that he was obliged to have 
it carried by one of his aides-de-camp. 

" On Her Majesty's entering the hall of the 
palace, a beautiful symphony, performed by 
more than three hundred musicians, resounded 
from the lofty gallery to greet her appearance. 
Thence she proceeded to the principal saloon, 
attended by a brilliant concourse. Here she 
took her seat upon a kind of throne surrounded 
with transparencies decorated with appropriate 
mottoes and inscriptions. . . . 

" The Grand Dukes Alexander and Constant- 
ine, at the head of the most beautiful young per- 
sons of the Court, danced a ballet. The dancers 
were forty-eight in number, all dressed uniformly 
in white, and wearing scarfs and girdles set with 
diamonds worth above ten millions of roubles. 
The music was taken from known songs analo- 
gous to the festivity; and the dance was in- 
terrupted with singing. The famous ballet- 
master, Le Picq, concluded the performance with 
a pas seul of his own composition. 

" The company now passed into another 
saloon hung with the richest tapestry of the 
324 



POTEMKIN 



Gobelins, in the centre of which stood an 
artificial elephant, covered with emeralds and 
rubies. A richly dressed Persian acted as his 
guide. . . . After this spectacle several choruses 
were sung ; country dances succeeded ; and 
these were followed by a grand Asiatic proces- 
sion, remarkable for the great diversity of the 
national dresses of the different nations subjected 
to the sceptre of the Empress. 

" Soon after, every room of the palace, 
brilliantly lighted up for the occasion, was 
thrown open to the amazed crowd. The whole 
palace seemed in a blaze ; the garden was 
covered with sparkling stones. Numerous 
mirrors, crystal pyramids and globes reflected 
this magnificent spectacle in every direction. 
All the windows of the winter garden, which 
serve also for so many doors to pass into the 
summer garden, were hidden by shrubs and fruit- 
bearing trees, which appeared on fire ; and while 
the eye contemplated this brilliant scene with a 
delicious rapture, the exquisite perfume of a 
variety of perfuming-pans, concealed behind 
flowers of all sorts, led the enchanted spectators 
to believe that it actually proceeded from their 
illuminated branches. . . . 

6 When supper was announced, six hundred 
persons sat down to table. Potemkin stood 
behind the chair of the Empress, to wait upon 
Her Majesty ; and he did not sit down before she 
repeatedly ordered him to be seated. Those of 
the company who could not find room at the 

325 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 

table were entertained at the sideboards. The 
plate was all gold and silver. The most ex- 
quisite dishes were served up in rich vases ; the 
most delicious wines flowed in abundance from 
antique cups ; and the table was lighted by the 
most costly lustres of crystal. An astonishing 
number of footmen and domestics, in superb 
dresses, were eager to anticipate the wishes of 
the guests. Nothing, in short, that luxury could 
name was asked for in vain. 

" Contrary to her general rule, the Empress 
stayed till one o'clock in the morning. She 
seemed afraid of disturbing the pleasure of her 
host. When she retired, numerous voices, 
accompanied by the most harmonious instru- 
ments, chanted a beautiful hymn to her praise. 
She was so affected that she turned round to 
Potemkin to express her satisfaction. The 
latter, overpowered by the strong feeling of what 
he owed to Her Majesty, fell on his knee, and, 
seizing her hand, bedewed it with tears. . . ." 

So writes Potemkin' s German biographer. 
The description has been quoted almost in full 
partly because it is a description of the great 
man's last conspicuous appearance in history, 
partly because it leaves us with a true and 
typical impression of him. He was great as a 
statesman, a puller of wires, and an organiser 
of victory ; greater still as an actor ; greatest 
of all as a stage-manager. Appearances were 
always more to him than realities. His life's 
326 " 



DEATH OF POTEMKIN 



work, as we have seen, was to create the Pageant 
of Russia — his conquests were chiefly valuable 
to him as contributions to that Pageant. 
Handling resources comparable with those of 
Napoleon Bonaparte, he applied them to the 
purposes of Mr. Louis Napoleon Parker. 

This last pageant was intended to be his 
greatest. It is no wonder that gossip saw a 
secret symbolism and significance in it, and 
surmised that it was not only a subject's act of 
homage to his sovereign, but also a bride- 
groom's feast to his bride. Gossip, it shall be 
repeated, was almost certainly in error ; but 
the end was so near that the mistake matters 
little, and is hardly worth investigating. 

Potemkin was but little over fifty, but his 
way of life had prematurely aged him. He 
returned to the seat of war, an invalid who 
could hardly bear the jolting of his carriage — 
a dying man, though he did not know it, and 
though no specific disease was diagnosed. Know- 
ing what we know of the climates in which he 
had campaigned, we may suspect that malaria 
had weakened him, and that a recurrence of 
malaria was now his trouble ; but the actual 
end was obviously hastened by his deliberate 
neglect of his health. " He dismissed his 
physicians," says his biographer, " lived upon 
salt meat and raw turnips, and drank hot wines 
and spirituous liquors ; " and there is other 
evidence to the same effect. 

According to Bezborodko, he refused medi- 

327 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



cines, and insisted, when he was in a high 
fever, upon throwing his windows wide open, 
and dousing himself with iced water. According 
to Langeron, he committed even greater follies — 

" Prince Potemkin," writes this last witness, 
" destroyed himself. I have seen him, in a fit 
of fever, eat a ham, a salted goose, and three 
or four fowls, and drink kvas, klouvka, hydromel, 
and several bottles of various kinds of wine." 

That was at Jassy. At last he decided to 
leave Jassy for Okzakof, either because he 
hoped to benefit from the change of air, or 
perhaps, as his biographer suggests, ' 6 with a 
view to expire on the theatre of his glory." The 
rest may be told in his biographer's words — 

" He set out on the 15th of October 1791, at 
three o'clock in the morning. Scarcely had he 
travelled a few versts when he could no longer 
bear the motion of his carriage. He alighted. 
A carpet was spread at the foot of a tree ; on 
this he was placed. He had no longer strength 
to utter a word ; he could only press the hand of 
his favourite niece, Countess Branicki, who was 
with him ; and he expired in her arms." 

There are many accounts of the shock which 
Catherine felt at the news. It was, she told 
Grimm, " like a blow from a sledge hammer." 
Potemkin was " my pupil, my friend, and well- 
328 



DEATH OF POTEMKIN 



nigh my idol." Genet, the French Charge 
d' Affaires, tells us she " fainted, and had to 
be bled"; Chrapowicki that she exclaimed, " I 
and the rest of us henceforward will be no more 
than snails that do not dare to thrust their horns 
out of their shells." Count Rostopchin writes 
that she paid all his debts, and the cost of the 
great entertainment which he had given her. 

But the way was now clear for Zubof, for 
whom, pushing and obstinate and unscrupulous 
though he was, the obstacles might have been 
serious if Potemkin had lived to insist upon 
barring the path to him. 



829 



CHAPTER XXIX 



The unconscionable Manners and Conduct of Plato Zubof 

No credence can be given to the report that 
Potemkin's death was due to poison, and that 
Plato Zubof was the poisoner. To a man in 
a high fever, a surfeit of salt junk is quite as 
likely to be fatal as any medicated potion. 
We may safely take our stand on that fact 
without laying stress on the negative results 
of the autopsy. The circulation of the rumour 
merely reflects the general reluctance of the 
Russian mind to believe that any Russian 
of high station has died a natural death, and 
the particular impression, obviously widespread, 
that Zubof wished Potemkin out of the way. 
Zubof, in short, profited by an accident so 
advantageous to him that it was not readily 
accepted as an accident ; and he now stepped 
into Potemkin's shoes, just as he had pre- 
viously stepped into those of Mamonof. They 
were far too large for his feet ; but he con- 
tinued to wear them until the end of Catherine's 
reign. 

He was the dishonest son of a dishonest 

330 



ZUBOF 



father : a provincial Vice- Governor, charged 
with the superintendence of certain State 
factories, and preferred, soon after his son's 
promotion, to the office of Procureur- General 
of the Senate. In the former capacity he was 
suspected of committing arson, in order to 
destroy ledgers the inspection of which w^ould 
have shown him guilty of fraud; in the latter, 
his malversations were so scandalous as to 
disgust — or, at all events, to inconvenience — 
his son, who sent him back to a province in 
which the standard of probity was even lower 
than in the capital. The son's integrity, how- 
ever, was on no higher level, though his privi- 
leged position protected him. It has already 
been stated that he was arrogant and un- 
scrupulous ; and it must be added that he was 
incompetent. His one virtue (if it be a virtue) 
was his nepotism. He fastened his family on 
the Russian Empire like a man applying leeches 
to the body politic ; and his father was the 
only leech removed for sucking the blood too 
fast. A letter from Rostopchin to Simon 
Vorontsof shows what was thought of him by 
those in a position to judge, and, at the same 
time, shows how he imposed upon the Empress — 

" Count Zubof is everything here. No one's 
wishes but his are of any account. His power 
is as great as that formerly enjoyed by Prince 
Potemkin. But he is as careless and incapable 
as he always was, though the Empress con- 

331 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 

tinually tells all and sundry that he is the 
greatest genius Russia has ever produced." 

It was not solely the infatuation of an 
amorous old woman which made her boast 
thus of her lover's ability. She also thought 
of Zubof, as she had presumed to think of 
Potemkin, as her pupil ; and it was her whim 
to believe that all her pupils did credit to her 
instruction. " Never before," she wrote to 
Plato Zubof himself, " has a man of your years 
had your means and opportunities of rendering 
service to his country ; " and the favourite 
let her say so, and seized the opportunity of 
serving himself and his hungry relatives — 
notably his brother Valerian, whom Catherine 
called " a hero in every sense of the word " 
because he came too near a cannon-ball, and 
so lost one of his legs. 

One can associate his name neither with 
any domestic reform nor with any honourable 
stroke of policy. 64 Follow the precedents," 
was his formula when referred to for instruc- 
tions ; and the precedents were mostly bad 
ones. " Nitchivo " became the watchword ; 
the army lost its discipline ; the finances fell 
into disorder. An absurd and unsuccessful 
expedition to Persia stands to his discredit ; 
and the further partition of Poland, involving 
the deposition of Poniatowski, is attributed to 
his insistence. One may conjecture that the 
fact that Poniatowski had once been Catherine's 
332 



ZUBOF 



lover weighed with him — he was the sort of 
man with whom such a fact would weigh. 

Catherine was blind in the matter ; and 
the flatterers surrounding her did not try to 
open her eyes. On the contrary, a member 
of the Senate, at a sitting of the Senate, praised 
Zubof at Potemkin's expense, setting forth that 
the former had annexed fertile and valuable 
provinces, whereas the conqueror of the Crimea 
had only added to the Empire " deserts infected 
with the plague " ; while, at some public Con- 
ference or other, an orator eloquently declared 
that Plato Zubof was a far greater man than 
Plato the disciple of Socrates. And meanwhile 
Plato Zubof was stuffing his pockets with 
roubles — 3,500,000 roubles, as we have already 
said — by all manner of nefarious methods. 

His most usual method was what in China 
is called " the squeeze." Other favourites had 
contented themselves with exploiting Catherine's 
affection. They had asked her for roubles, 
and, in due course, they had found roubles 
under their pillows. Zubof also did that to 
some extent; but his chief anxiety was to ex- 
ploit his influence. Everything passed through 
his hands, and some of it always stuck to 
them. No advancement, favour, or decora- 
tion could be obtained without his help ; and 
he did not judge claims on their merits, but 
charged a price for the " pull," which varied 
according to the applicant's capacity for paying. 
And all that with an insolence beside which 

833 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



the insolence of Potemkin seems trivial and 
colourless. 

Potemkin' s insolence, after all, had been 
the insolence of the barbarian. It had been, 
in part, the insolence of the vain man conscious 
of great gifts and constitutionally incapable 
of suffering fools gladly. Underneath his bluff- 
ness, there had been a fundamental bonhomie. 
The rough crust could be broken by anyone 
who took him the right way — always excepting 
the husbands who refused to be complacent. 
We have seen how the Comte de Segur and 
the Prince de Ligne contrived to break it. 
Though he was not popular, he had friends as 
well as enemies. The most significant fact 
about Zubof is that he only had enemies : that, 
in spite of the interested flattery bestowed 
upon him when he was powerful, no one spoke 
well of him after he had fallen, and none of 
the Private Diaries or Secret Memoirs of the 
time treat him otherwise than with loathing 
and contempt. 

It is from these, of course, that we derive 
the picture of his insolence, which can only be 
summed up as the insolence of a puppy ; and we 
may borrow our first sketch from the pen of 
Prince Adam Czartoryski, who came to St. 
Petersburg from Poland, as a young man of 
five - and - twenty, in order to plead for the 
restitution of estates confiscated after the 
suppression of Kosciusko's rebellion. He was 
well received in Russian society, and what 
334 



ZUBOF 



he saw there he saw with fresh, if not unpre- 
judiced, eyes. The progress of his private 
affairs need not concern us ; but his impression 
of Catherine's way of life — and of the attitude of 
the Russian people towards that way of life — 
may serve to introduce the subject — 

" The prosperous reign of Catherine," Prince 
Adam writes, " had confirmed the servility of the 
Russian character, in spite of the penetration of 
the country by a few rays of European civilisation. 
Consequently the whole nation, whether of high 
or of low degree, showed themselves in no way 
scandalised by their sovereign's depraved morals, 
or by the murders ascribed to her. She could do 
whatever she liked. Her immorality was a holy 
thing — it occurred to no one to criticise her 
dissolute behaviour. All respected it, just as 
the heathen used to respect the crimes and 
obscenities of the gods of Olympus and the 
Caesars of Rome." 

Prince Adam was persuaded, however, that 
the Empress, however licentious her personal life, 
was jealous of her reputation for justice. He 
placed his hopes on that, and, consulting his 
Russian friends, was informed that, before seek- 
ing to be presented to her, he must first attend 
the levee of her favourite. Zubof, he learnt, 
received visitors daily, on official business, at 
eleven o'clock, while he was engaged with his 
toilet. He went, with the rest, and found the 

335 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 

street compact " with coaches and four and 
coaches and six, just as at the grand entrance 
of a theatre." He was admitted, and found the 
antechamber crowded with courtiers — officers of 
high rank, important functionaries, provincial 
governors among them — each waiting his turn, 
and watching his chance to solicit the redress of 
his grievances or the satisfaction of his greed — 

" The ceremony was always the same — 
always as follows: The folding -doors were 
thrown open, and Zubof entered with slow and 
solemn deliberation, clad in a dressing-gown and 
little else. He saluted the courtiers and the 
suppliants with a stiff and almost imperceptible 
bow. They stood around him in a deferential 
semicircle, and he proceeded to dress. His 
valets approached him, to comb and powder 
his hair. While this was going on, one saw 
other suppliants enter. They too, if the Count 
happened to notice them, were greeted with a 
chilly bow ; and they were all on the qui vive to 
catch his eye. . . . We were all kept standing, 
and no one dared to breathe a word. It was in 
dumb show and in eloquent silence that each of 
us tried to recommend the care of his interests 
to the all-powerful favourite. If anyone did 
speak, it was only in reply to a remark addressed 
to him by the Count ; and that remark never 
had any bearing on the subject of his request. 
Often, indeed, the Count said nothing to any- 
one ; and I cannot remember that he offered 
336 



ZUBOF 



anyone a seat, unless it was Field-Marshal Sol- 
tikof, who was the leading personage at the 
Court. Tutulmin, the despotic proconsul, the 
terror, at that date, of Podolia and Volhynia, 
though told to be seated, only dared to sit on 
the edge of the chair. . . . 

" While the favourite's hair was being dressed, 
his secretary, Gribovski, handed him documents 
which required his signature ; and the suppliants 
told each other in whispers how much they had 
had to pay Gribovski, in order to gain his master's 
ear. Gribovski, like Gil Bias, received them 
as haughtily as his master ; and when the pro- 
cess of hair-dressing was complete, and a few 
papers had been signed, the Count put on his 
uniform, or his morning coat, and withdrew 
to his apartments. All that was done with an 
air of insolent indifference intended to impress 
the audience as dignified gravity. There was 
nothing natural about it — it was all deliberate, 
and had been rehearsed. When the Count had 
gone, the suppliants descended to their carriages 
and drove away, some more some less dissatisfied 
with their reception." 

Very similar is the picture of the same scene 
sketched in the Memoirs of Langeron, who, how- 
ever, adds a few graphic details : that Zubof 
commonly placed his feet on the dressing-table 
during the ceremony ; that he often sat with his 
back to the suppliants and inspected them with 
the help of a looking-glass ; that those whom he 
y 337 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



beckoned to draw near him bowed till they bent 
nearly double as they approached, and retired on 
tiptoe when they were dismissed ; that many of 
the suppliants attended the receptions for years 
without ever receiving a word of recognition. 
From another source we get a story of a general 
officer so servile in his manner that he did not 
venture to remonstrate or move when Zubof's 
pet monkey perched itself on his head. The 
picture of impertinent puppyism on the one 
hand and shameless self-abasement on the other 
could not be more complete. 

Prince Adam, however, was one of the few 
on whom the favourite smiled. He gained his 
entree at Court, and was given some minor Court 
appointment ; and to that fact we owe some 
further vivid glimpses at the last inglorious 
days of a great reign : a picture, for example, 
of Catherine herself in her old age — 

" She was an old woman, indeed, but still 
hale and vigorous, short rather than tall, and 
distinctly inclined to be fat. Her walk, her 
bearing, and her whole personality, however, 
were full of dignity. There were no brusque 
movements — her manner was serious and noble ; 
but she was like a river whose slow stream is 
strong enough to carry everything before it. 
Her face, wrinkled, but very expressive, bore 
witness to her pride and her desire to dominate. 
On her lips was an eternal smile, though, for 
those who remembered what she had done, 
338 



ZUBOF 



this studied calm was a mask concealing violent 
passions and an inexorable will." 

The last phrase, of course, reflects Polish 
animosity too obviously for importance to be 
attached to it ; but, that allowance made, the 
vignette is valuable ; and so are the more 
intimate pictures of Zubof which succeed it. 
We are shown Zubof entertaining his equals ; 
and our impression of his manners is as un- 
pleasant as before. He invited them to be 
seated, indeed — he could not well do less ; but, 
for his own part, he lay, in negligent ease, at 
full length on a sofa — this even when he was 
entertaining Esterhazy and Cobentzel. And 
he dropped hints wherefrom it was inferred 
that, though Catherine was his mistress, he was 
in reality pining for love of Princess Elizabeth, 
the sixteen-year-old bride of the Grand Duke 
Alexander. Prince Adam's sketch of that pose 
must be given — 

" People were amazed at his presuming to 
entertain this fancy under Catherine's very 
eyes ; but as for the young Grand Duchess, she 
took no notice of him whatsoever. His amorous 
fits, so far as one could see, generally came on 
after dinner, when we called upon him ; for 
then he did nothing but sigh as he lay on the 
sofa, with the melancholy air of a man whose 
heart is oppressed by the weight of a secret 
sorrow. Nothing could please him except the 

339 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



melancholy and voluptuous strains of the flute ; 
in short, he showed all the symptoms of a man 
badly in love. A few of his intimates apparently 
knew his secret ; at all events, they appeared 
to establish themselves on a footing of sympathy 
by knowing and pretending not to know. His 
attendants said that, when he visited Catherine, 
he left her as if overwhelmed with lassitude, 
and with an air of gloom which made them 
pity him. He used, at these times, to sprinkle 
himself with perfumes, and received his callers 
with a fatigued and sorrowful demeanour, which 
no one failed to remark. But he would not 
rest, representing that sleep robs us of a precious 
portion of our lives." 

Such was his pose, and we will leave him 
posing. Our next extract must be a note on 
the Sunday scene when the Empress, after taking 
part in public worship, passed her Court on her 
way back from the chapel to her apartments — 

" I am told that it was on the occasion of 
these church parades, which took place on every 
Sunday and every Saint's Day, that the gallants 
of the barracks used to oil their hair and scent 
themselves, and put on their smartest uniforms, 
and stand in a row in the hope of attracting 
attention by their fine figures and manly beauty. 
It is said, too, that it was no unknown thing 
for one of them to succeed, though in our time 
Catherine was too old for that sort of thing." 
340 



ZUBOF 



Which is to say that, though Catherine 
might have rivals, Zubof had none. There 
follows this picture of Catherine's easy-going 
manners with her favourite, and her favourite's 
easy-going manners with her — 

66 Sleighing parties were organised. Catherine 
liked sometimes to drive out in this style in 
the morning ; and the gentlemen on duty had 
to take their sleighs and accompany her. On 
one of these occasions I saw Catherine en des- 
habille, and Zubof quitting her apartment with 
the air of a man who was quite at home there, 
in his pelisse and Morocco leather boots ; but 
neither the actors in the scene nor the spectators 
of it seemed in the least embarrassed." 

And then, to complete the picture, this ac- 
count of the evening diversions of the Court — 

" The Empress sat at a card-table with Zubof 
and two other dignitaries. It was observed 
that the favourite paid little attention either 
to the game or to his sovereign, but continually 
turned his eyes towards the table at which the 
two Grand Duchesses and their husbands were 
playing ; and it was astonishing that the Empress 
never seemed to notice this, though everybody 
else in the room was much impressed by it. 
Anywhere but in the Empress's drawing-room, 
such evenings would have seemed insufferably 
tedious ; even there one was glad that they 

341 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



were not unduly prolonged. The Empress did 
not stay till supper-time, but left off playing 
early, and withdrew to her private suite. She 
bowed with dignity to the Princesses and the 
company ; the folding-doors of her apartment 
opened ; the Grand Dukes and the Grand 
Duchesses also withdrew. Then Zubof made a 
precisely similar bow, and followed the Empress 
to her apartments; the folding - doors closing 
behind them — a proceeding which struck some 
of us as rather singular." 

Such were the typical scenes, and such were 
the central figures of the scenes, of those last 
years of Catherine's life, at which we must now 
take a further glance from another point of 
view. 



342 



CHAPTER XXX 



Catherine's Family Life — Her Son and her Grandchildren 

Catherine had long been a grandmother ; her 
grandchildren were now grown up. During the 
reign of Zubof she arranged their marriages, 
uniting the Grand Duke Alexander to Princess 
Elizabeth of Baden, the Grand Duke Constantine 
to a Princess of Saxe-Coburg. Little has been 
said in these pages about her family affections ; 
and little need be said. It is a characteristic of 
Catherine, of which we must make what we can, 
that the story of her personal life can be told 
with hardly a reference to such matters. The 
historian, of course, must take note of them ; 
but the biographer, when once he has related 
the circumstances of the birth of her son, finds 
his interest diverted into other channels and 
confined to them. Yet what inference to draw ? 
What blame to assign — and to whom ? 

One may start safely with the statement 
that the obligations of family love were neither 
impressed upon Catherine by the example of 
her own parents nor encouraged in Russian im- 
perial circles. We have seen her, when only a 

343 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



child, married to a husband whom she did not 
like, with little more ado than if she had been 
sold into slavery, to satisfy ambitions which, at 
the moment, were assuredly her parents' rather 
than her own. We have seen her introduced 
to a Court at which a drunken and dissolute 
Empress kept a relative in prison — not on ac- 
count of any crime that he had committed, but 
for fear lest the factious should raise a rebellion in 
his name. We have also seen her forbidden by 
Elizabeth's Prime Minister to correspond with 
her own mother, and admonished by Elizabeth 
herself for wearing mourning for her own father 
for more than a week — for a week, said Eliza- 
beth, was quite long enough to mourn for any- 
one except a king. These circumstances justify 
nothing, of course ; but they explain much. 

Moreover, Catherine's husband turned out to 
be, as we have seen, not a better, but a very 
much worse husband than she had hoped for. 
Her union with him was barren, and he was 
unfaithful ; and an heir was wanted, and in- 
sidious suggestions were whispered in her ear. 
Duty, she was told, depended upon circum- 
stances. Chastity was a very good virtue in 
its way, but there was a Higher Law. The 
Higher Law enjoined the production of an heir 
to the throne, by whatever means obtained. 
Parents and guardians would not inquire too 
closely into the means, provided the end were 
achieved. Young Soltikof was very handsome, 
very attractive, very much in love. If Catherine 
344 



THE GRAND DUKE PAUL 



liked him, there really was no reason — and 
there need be no difficulty — provided, of course, 
that appearances were kept up, and no open 
scandal was caused. . . . 

So Paul was born ; and it is not only the 
historical student whose mind is clouded with a 
doubt concerning him. Catherine also had her 
uncertainties. For it is not only uncertain 
whether Peter was Paul's father — it is also 
uncertain whether Paul was Catherine's child. 
She bore a child, and it was taken away from 
her — whether the child subsequently put into 
her arms was the same child or a changeling, 
none can say. The whole story is a mystery, of 
a piece with the mysteries which so often 
envelop critical occurrences in Russia. One 
no more knows what really happened then in 
the palace than one knows what happened, at 
at other times, in the prisons. 

It has been argued — notably by Masson — 
that Catherine's dislike of Paul is our best proof 
that Peter was Paul's father : that the mother 
instinctively visited the faults of the father on 
the child. It is conceivable ; but it is just as 
likely that her prejudice against the child 
sprang out of a doubt as to its identity : a 
doubt confirmed, as the years passed, by the 
development of the child's disposition — its ob- 
vious lack of its supposed mother's talents, 
intellectual interests, and power to please. A 
bad start that : as unfavourable as it well could 
be to the strengthening of those domestic ties 

345 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



which make homes happy and families har- 
monious. 

And the bad start soon had a bad sequel. 
Not only was Paul an unsatisfactory boy — 
stupid, morose, and unattractive ; he was also 
a boy whom Catherine was obliged, from the 
first, to regard as a possible rival — and a boy 
whom insidious courtiers taught, in his im- 
pressionable years, to think evil of his mothei?. 
The indispensable Panin, it will be remembered, 
had only collaborated in the revolution of 1762 
with the idea of making Paul Emperor and 
Catherine Regent during his minority. He had 
been too fat to get his way. Catherine and the 
Orlofs had been too quick for him. But his 
proposal had not been forgotten. It continued 
to inspire intrigues, though the intrigues never 
came to anything. And Panin was Paul's tutor 
— and Paul, somehow or other, was taught to 
ask, What have they done with my father ? 

He may be said to have grown up under the 
shadow of that terrible question, so embarrassing 
to those about him — hardly less embarrassing 
to Catherine, who had profited by the crime 
committed in the Ropscha prison, than to those 
who, without her knowledge, had stained their 
hands with blood to serve her cause. It became 
a fixed idea with him — a haunting obsession 
which still haunted him when he was called to 
the throne. It is said that he then exhumed 
his father's body and placed it on the throne. 
It is better accredited that he disinterred his 
346 



THE GRAND DUKE PAUL 

father's skull, and had it laid on the altar, while 
the people sang a Te Deum. It is certain that 
he sent for Alexis Orlof, whom he persisted in 
regarding as his father's murderer, and com- 
pelled him to mount guard for two days beside 
his father's coffin. 

Between such a son and such a mother 
affectionate and confidential relations could not 
conceivably subsist. There was no way out of 
the emotional tangle except for Catherine to go 
her way and let Paul go his — keeping, the while, 
a close eye and a tight hand on him to prevent 
him from making mischief. She did so ; and 
not only their paths but also their characters 
diverged. Catherine saw to it that Paul was 
suitably educated and suitably married — for 
that was a political necessity. Since he had the 
same military tastes as Peter, she let him have 
soldiers of his own to drill — though never enough 
to be a possible source of danger to her ; but he 
was never one of the pupils whom it delighted 
her to " form." No opening was found for him 
either in civil or in military affairs. When he 
went to the Swedish war, the general was speci- 
ally instructed to give him no information as to 
his plans ; and he had to live with restricted 
liberty, an empty purse, and the fear before his 
eyes that, when the succession to the throne 
came to be settled, he would be passed over in 
favour of one of his own sons. 

It was a hard case ; and one would sympa- 
thise if one could find anything in his character 

347 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



responsive to sympathy : but that is how he 
differs from Catherine. She, at any rate, what- 
ever her faults, knew how to charm her con- 
temporaries ; and a good deal of her charm still 
subsists in spite of the stiffening of the standards 
of morality in modern Courts. One still admires 
her daring, her intellectual alertness, her pride 
in her petit menage, her patronage of the 
arts, her open-handed liberality, her refusal to 
bear malice when she was " treated badly," 
and her amiability when she put off the Auto- 
crat at her hours of ease. These virtues still 
cover a multitude of shortcomings ; and they 
cloaked those shortcomings even more effectu- 
ally during her life. Of those who were privi- 
leged to see much of her, there was hardly one 
who did not " make allowances " and speak 
kindly. Lord Malmesbury, who took to St. 
Petersburg something uncommonly like a Non- 
conformist Conscience, is almost the sole excep- 
tion to the rule. 

Of Paul, on the other hand, it is almost 
equally exceptional to find anyone speaking 
well, unless it be when he is praised out of 
malice aforethought, as an indirect reflection on 
Catherine. The Chevalier de Corberon pictures 
him as an unlicked, but self-conscious, cub, ill 
at ease in his uniform, and always trying to 
remember how his dancing-master had taught 
him to hold himself. The typical anecdotes 
represent him as stupid, ill-tempered, boorishly 
and sullenly rude, and of an autocratic pride 
348 



THE GRAND DUKE PAUL 



without parallel even in the most autocratic 
circles. 

The view commonly taken of his mental 
endowments is best illustrated by an anecdote 
of a brief dialogue which passed between him 
and Zubof in Catherine's presence. " I agree 
with M. Zubof," said the Grand Duke, apropos 
of no matter what. " Eh ! You agree with 
me ? How's that ? Have I said something 
foolish ? " was the favourite's insolent re- 
joinder ; but in most of the stories it is the 
Grand Duke who figures as insolent. Baroness 
Oberkirch tells us, in her Memoirs, how he in- 
sulted Clerisseau, the architect, at Paris, when he 
was taking his grand tour. " Why do you re- 
fuse to speak to me, my lord ? " the architect 
ventured to ask him, when he was taken to see a 
building which was one of Clerisseau' s master- 
pieces. " Because I have nothing to say to 
you, sir," Paul retorted ; and when Clerisseau 
protested that he should have to tell the Empress, 
with whom he was in correspondence, how he 
had been treated by her son : " Very well, sir," 
said Paul. " Tell her that you are blocking my 
way. I have no doubt she will be much obliged 
to you." 

One could infer the relations of mother 
and son from that anecdote if one did not 
know it from other sources ; and one could 
draw an identical inference from the scraps 
of their correspondence which have been pre- 
served — 

349 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



" My dear Mother, — Your Imperial 
Majesty's letter gave me great pleasure, and I 
beg your Imperial Majesty to accept my thanks, 
and at the same time to believe in the respect 
and attachment with which I sign myself . . ." 

"My dear Son, — I have received your 
letter of the fifth of this month, assuring me 
of your sentiments. My own sentiments are 
similar. Good-bye. I hope you will keep well." 

They had no more to say to each other than 
that, and they drifted farther and farther apart ; 
and one can say little except that Catherine's 
attitude partly explains Paul's, and that Paul's 
partly explains Catherine's. 

Most likely Paul was mad. If one believed 
that he was Peter's son, one would say that he 
inherited Peter's insanity and absurdity. As it 
is, one has to take him on his merits, and pro- 
nounce, after careful inquiry, that he had few. 
Living in terror of assassination, he behaved 
with the cruelty of cowards — inflicting the 
cruelty with the grotesque and capricious humour 
of a maniac. The story which best reveals him 
in a flash is that of his reply to the stranger 
who presumed to ask him who were the most 
important men in the Russian Empire. " Sir," 
he answered, " there is no important man in 
the Russian Empire except the man to whom I 
am speaking, and he is only important as long 
as I am speaking to him." 
350 



THE GRANDCHILDREN 



One could supplement that anecdote with 
many stories of floggings, executions, and banish- 
ments ; but such matters belong to the record 
of his reign rather than of Catherine's. Enough 
to recall here the story of the officer who, for 
invidiously contrasting the two reigns, had his 
tongue cut out and was exiled to Siberia — and 
to note that these barbarities, being the bar- 
barities of a weak man, made his ultimate doom 
inevitable : a palace revolution in favour of 
his son Alexander, with Zubof for one of the 
conspirators. 

So that it must be granted that Catherine's 
estrangement from her son does not, in view 
of all the circumstances, stamp her as an un- 
natural mother. She was not at all sure that 
Paul was her son, and she was quite sure that 
he was not the sort of man she would have 
liked her son to be. But she was a woman of 
great emotional vivacity and expansiveness; and, 
the normal avenues of emotion being closed to 
her, she had to find other outlets for it. 

At times, and to some extent, she found such 
outlets in her affection for her grandchildren 
— and in particular for the future Emperor 
Alexander. " I dote on him," she wrote to 
Grimm ; and she taught Alexander his alphabet, 
and let him bring his toys and play with her, 
and designed a frock for him of a new original 
pattern, which she exhibited with pride to the 
King of Sweden and the Prince of Prussia. 
She boasted, too, like any other grandmother, 

351 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



of his precocity, and, in particular, of his pre- 
cocious sensibility. It was a proud moment 
when he ran crying to tell her that the poor 
sentinel outside the door was shivering with 
the cold ; a prouder moment still when she 
heard people say that he " took after " her in 
thus showing consideration for his inferiors ; 
the proudest moment of all when he stammered 
out that he would rather be like his grandmother 
than like his parents. 

Whether the grandson who conceived the 
horrible idea of the Holy Alliance really derived 
much moral and spiritual inspiration from the 
grandmother who danced to the piping of eight- 
eenth-century philosophers is another question, 
too large to be entered upon here. Religion, 
at any rate, cannot have been the link between 
them ; for Catherine was merely a rationalist 
who conformed in order that she might not 
shock, whereas Alexander was to become a 
superstitious mystic whom devout women 
wheedled. But no matter. The real point claim- 
ing notice is that there does exist some material 
— though not perhaps very much — for thinking 
of Catherine as a matron who found her truest 
happiness in the nursery : a grandmother of the 
Gracchi, saying with proud affection, " These 
are my jewels." A certain portion of her en- 
thusiasm indubitably took that outlet. 

The rest of it, as we have seen, was lavished 
on her favourites : first on dashing young 
soldiers like Soltikof and Andrew Czernichef ; 
352 



CATHERINES CHARACTER 



then on Poniatowski, the Man of Feeling ; then 
on Gregory Orlof, the Strong Man who made 
a revolution for her ; finally on subalterns 
young enough to be her sons, some of them 
nonentities and others puppies, with no qualities 
beyond those of a barber's block to recommend 
them. In the case of a German woman, one 
naturally looks for a German word to describe 
the turmoil in her heart, and perhaps the word 
schwarmerei may be useful. It implies en- 
thusiasm rather than passion ; and certainly 
enthusiasm rather than passion was the char- 
acteristic of Catherine's affections. She never 
passed, as the passionate do, from love to hatred, 
when passion ceased to be returned. Our im- 
pression is rather of enthusiasms dwindling, 
but leaving pleasant memories behind them, 
when other enthusiasms spring up to take their 
place. 

It is true, of course, that her enthusiasms 
included rather more than the word schwar- 
merei commonly implies ; but that was almost 
inevitable in the circumstances in which she 
lived. She had the temperament of those to 
whom the Apostle of the Gentiles addressed 
his famous warning that "it is better to marry 
than to burn " ; but the dilemma did not pre- 
sent itself as a real one either to her or to any 
of her advisers. When she talked of marrying, 
her Senate, as we have seen, raised objections, 
but added that no objection would be taken to 
her distinguishing her subjects with her favours, 
z 353 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



Since she was thus forbidden to unite herself 
to any one of them by any permanent tie, there 
remained no reason other than her caprice for 
favouring one of them in preference to another, 
or for confining her favours to any single favourite. 
Nobody expected her so to confine them, and 
she did not ; but her amours never wronged 
a wife or broke up a home, though she ran the 
gamut of the emotions which she needed. 

That need for emotion, indeed, — coupled with 
the fact that so many natural outlets of emotion 
were closed to her, — is the master key to any 
riddle which her character still seems to present. 
At heart she was as little Messalina as she was 
Semiramis, but a German bourgeoise, who re- 
quired to exercise her heart as an athlete re- 
quires to exercise his limbs. She wanted the 
common lot, though she could not obtain it in 
the common way. In her own way she came 
to experience a good deal of it — its tears as 
well as its triumphs. Her heart, in short, was 
sincere, though it was also elastic, and, in the 
end, showed rather more elasticity than a senti- 
mentalist can quite admire. 

For Catherine did not, like George Sand, 
know how to grow old with dignity. Looking 
at the sentimental side of her life, one has to 
admit that she lingered too long on the stage, 
and in so lingering made herself ridiculous. 
There is no dignity whatever — there is nothing 
that is not sad or laughable — in the picture 
of those last years during which she let an in- 
354 



CATHERINE'S CHARACTER 



sufferable young puppy fool her, while he robbed 
and insulted her subjects. That is the truth, 
and it must be told ; but there is no need for 
telling it with a wry face or a superior sneer. 
Catherine was a foolishly amorous old woman 
— there is no denying that. But she was the 
wreck of a woman who had been great, and, 
if better advised, might have been greater ; a 
woman whose circumstances had been as adverse 
to the formation of a fine character as circum- 
stances well can be, and whose character had 
nevertheless preserved many elements of grace 
and grandeur ; a woman, therefore, whose final 
philanderings, unbecoming though they were, 
are a theme not for scorn and laughter, but 
for tears and pity. 

And so to the closing scenes. 



355 



CHAPTER XXXI 



Last Years and Death 

Zubof' s arrogance continued unabated to the 
last. Perhaps he felt that arrogance — with the 
humility of courtiers for its complement — was 
a condition of self-respect in circumstances in 
which men, as a rule, do not respect themselves. 
To give it due prominence, one must add yet 
another sketch, taken from the Letters of Ros- 
topchin, the Saint -Simon of his age and 
country — 

" You will be surprised to hear that General 
Melessino, when he received the Grand Cordon 
of the Order of Vladimir the other day from 
M. Zubof, actually kissed his hand. Moreover, 
there is here a Lieutenant-General Kutusof — 
he who was formerly Ambassador at Constan- 
tinople. What do you think that man does ? 
He comes an hour before Count Zubof rises, and 
makes his coffee for him, pretending that it is 
an art in which he possesses special skill ; and, 
in the presence of a crowd of people, he pours 
it out, and carries the cup to the favourite in 
his bed." 
356 



LAST YEARS 

At the same time, if we may believe Ros- 
topehin ? — and there is no particular reason why 
we should not, — the Empire of All the Russias, 
like the Empire of ancient Rome, was being 
destroyed by the prevalent corruption. The 
civilisation which Catherine had introduced had 
been something more than a veneer. She had 
imitated the West, whereas Peter the Great 
had only parodied it. Her ideals had been 
generous and elevated, and they had in part 
been carried out. She had tried to live up to 
the expectations of the French Encyclopaedists ; 
she had in part succeeded. Her Court, in spite 
of Lord Malmesbury's opinion of it, had aban- 
doned the orgies which of old distinguished it. 
Vice (if anyone insists upon the word) had lost, 
if not all its grossness, at least a noticeable 
proportion of it. Such revels as caused scandal 
at Potemkin's headquarters had not been in- 
cluded in the common round in Catherine's 
palaces. Machinery was in motion, and doing 
its work. There was visible, and indeed con- 
spicuous, progress towards refinement, culture, 
tolerance, and education. 

But the work was only begun, not finished. 
The machinery was not in such order that it 
could run by itself ; and the ruling classes of 
Russia, whose business it was to keep it running, 
were the people of whom it was justly said that 
they were "rotten before they were ripe." So 
now, inevitably, as Catherine was growing old, 
there was reaction and reversion to type. She 

357 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



was reaching the age at which the arteries 
harden. The hardening of the arteries was to 
be the cause of her sudden death ; but we can 
also trace its effect in the stiffening of her 
ideas, her neglect of the duties of government, 
and her readiness, in the face of new condi- 
tions, to fall back upon old-fashioned, cast-iron 
prejudices. 

The French Revolution is the touchstone ; 
her attitude towards it is the test. She had been 
the friend, and even the pupil, of the theorists 
whose ideas it put in practice ; but it baffled 
her, and made her angry — it may even be said 
to have set her scolding. She could not see 
that it was pregnant with the reforms for which 
she had professed enthusiasm — such reforms as 
no benevolent despot ever yet succeeded in 
bringing to birth. She only saw in it a sugges- 
tion that all autocrats must make haste to stand 
shoulder to shoulder, before evil overtook them. 
In that way, and to that extent, she did antici- 
pate the idea of her grandson's Holy Alliance 
— albeit in the spirit of a scared old woman, and 
not of the perfervid mystic who believed that 
it was his divine mission to trample upon 
prostrate peoples. 

It is intelligible. The abolition of feudal 
rights may well have frightened an Autocrat 
who was accustomed to give away serfs more 
freely than modern sovereigns give away scarf- 
pins. She could not be expected to see in such 
transactions the recommencement of the world's 
358 



LAST YEARS 



great age, or the return of the golden years. 
Most likely she would still have taken the line 
she took if she had been in the hands of good ad- 
visers, and able conscientiously to lay her hand 
upon her heart and say that her own Empire, at 
any rate, stood in no need of revolution. As 
a matter of fact, she was in bad hands, and her 
Empire needed revolution badly. 
Let us quote Rostopchin again — 

" You can have no idea how shockingly our 
men and their officers are behaving in Poland. 
They are the same men as before, but they have 
become heartless, and are more like highway 
robbers than soldiers. Have you heard of the 
atrocities which are being committed at Warsaw 
— wives torn from their husbands, and daughters 
from their fathers, and no complaints allowed ? 
The peasants pillaged till they are driven to 
despair — the nobles treated worse than their 
slaves ? Yesterday ninety thousand Polish 
peasants were distributed among seventy-two 
persons. Count Zubof took thirteen thousand 
of them — valued at a hundred thousand roubles 
a year — and Rumantzof and Suvorof took seven 
thousand each. . . . 

"In the Caucasus people are denouncing 
the atrocities perpetrated by General Paul 
Potemkin. The barbarities of the Spaniards in 
the New World, and of the English in the Indies, 
are nothing to those of our military philosopher, 
who spends part of his time in translating 

859 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



Rousseau's Heloise, and the rest of it in executing 
all persons whose property excites his greed. 
They say he is sure to go unpunished because he 
is so rich." 

It is impossible to say what Catherine 
knew of this — most likely she knew very little. 
Just as Potemkin had deceived her with his 
" property " villages and his stage armies of 
loyal and prosperous subjects, so Zubof may 
be supposed to have blinded her eyes to the 
corruption and cruelty which were going on 
by his pleasant manners and plausible tales of 
military glory. Moreover, she had other things 
to think about. Rostopchin adds something 
to a story which we have already glanced at 
in the pages of Adam Czartoryski — 

" Some of her people threw out hints to 
her concerning her favourite's passion for the 
Grand Duchess Elizabeth. She caught them 
exchanging glances, and there was a scene. 
She sulked for a few days, and then made it 
up again ; but she was very angry with old 
Count Stackelberg, whom she suspected of 
being in the confidence of the lovers ; and she 
made herself so unpleasant to him that that 
aged courtier had to quit the Court." 

So that, if Catherine found happiness in 
love at times, she certainly did not find it 
always ; and her doubts of the sincerity of 
360 * 



ILLNESS OF CATHERINE 



Zubof's affection were not her only trouble. 
She was also distressed by the failure of the 
marriage which she had planned between her 
granddaughter and the Prince of Sweden. The 
insuperable object there was the religious one. 
The Prince being a Swedenborgian, there was 
a difficulty about allowing his wife to worship 
publicly in Stockholm, according to the Ortho- 
dox rite. Somehow or other, the negotiations 
were bungled, and the match had to be broken 
off, after the date of the wedding had been 
fixed, in circumstances similar to those which 
sometimes come to light in a bad breach of 
promise case. " I leave you to imagine," 
Catherine wrote to her Ambassador at Stock- 
holm, " how very indecent their behaviour 
has been." 

She was upset, and the shock — helped, 
perhaps, by the shock which Zubof's conduct 
had brought about — affected her health. She 
was a woman of strong constitution, hardly ever 
known to be ill ; but her arteries were harden- 
ing, and, when that happens, shocks are serious 
matters. Rostopchin notes her indisposition — 

" Her state of health is unsatisfactory. 
She no longer walks. In the latter days of 
September she experienced a shock — was said 
to have been affected by a thunderstorm — 
a strange occurrence in this country, and 
unparalleled since the death of the Empress 
Elizabeth. She is keeping her room." 

361 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



No more than that. There were no obvious 
grounds for anxiety. The Court felt none ; 
and the gaieties of the Palace went on as usual. 
On the evening of 16th November Catherine 
spoke jestingly of death ; and on the morning 
of the 17th, she told the maid who called her 
that she had never slept better in her life. 
But a few hours later couriers were galloping 
in hot haste with news for Paul. 

Paul was at Gatehina, which is half a day's 
journey from St. Petersburg, — despised, neg- 
lected, and practically exiled, — on bad terms 
with Catherine, and on worse terms with Zubof. 
"It is a point of pique with them," writes Ros- 
topchin, " to make clear to each other their 
respective positions as Grand Duke and subject ; 
but the subject is the great man and the Grand 
Duke is a nullity." He continues — 

" He is being treated even worse than usual. 
Last summer, for instance, when he wanted 
to go to Pavlovski, he was told that the journey 
would cost too much money, and that he must 
stop where he was. When one is a Grand Duke 
of Russia, and is forty-one years old, and is 
treated by one's future subjects as if one were 
a naughty boy, it is no wonder if one fumes 
with suppressed rage ; and that is what the 
Grand Duke is doing." 

And then (so the story goes), on the night 
of 16th November, Paul had a dream. It 
362 



DEATH OF CATHERINE 



seemed to him that some invisible and super- 
natural force was laying hold of him and lifting 
him up to heaven. He fell asleep again ; but 
the same vision revisited him — an obsession 
which he could not shake off. He told the 
Grand Duchess, who was lying awake beside 
him, and learnt that her slumbers too had been 
broken by a precisely similar dream. They 
agreed that they had received some super- 
natural warning — whether of good or of evil 
they must wait to see. 

They waited, wondering — fearful rather than 
hopeful ; and while they were taking their 
after-dinner coffee, the mystery was solved. 
Nicolas Zubof, one of the favourite's brothers, 
came riding up the avenue towards them. He 
dismounted, left his horse, and approached 
on foot ; and Paul turned pale. "It is all up 
with us — we are lost," he cried, assuming that 
this was the signal for his deportation ; but, a 
moment later, Nicolas was on his knees an- 
nouncing that the Empress lay at the point of 
death — that no hopes of her recovery were 
entertained. 

It was a little after three o'clock — and Nov- 
ember days are short in Russia. A carriage was 
instantly ordered ; and the Grand Duke and 
Duchess drove off in the twilight. Nicolas 
Zubof had already ridden ahead, to arrange 
that fresh horses should be ready at every stage. 
Rostopchin met him on the road, drunk and 
blasphemous — threatening to harness the post- 
363 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



master himself to the carriage if the horses were 
not forthcoming promptly. Other messengers, 
only a little behind the first, were met upon the 
way, bringing the same news. The Grand Dukes 
Alexander and Constantine had sent couriers ; 
so had several of the Court officials ; so had even 
the Chief Cook and the Chief Fishmonger. Hav- 
ing delivered their messages, they turned and 
followed Paul's carriage. A swelling procession 
galloped along the St. Petersburg road in the 
moonlight, Paul saying the while to Rostop- 
chin the things which it is proper for the heir 
to a great Empire to say at such an hour — 

" Wait, my friend, wait ! I have lived 
forty-two years in the world. God has so far 
supported me. No doubt He will give me the 
strength and the ability to bear the burden which 
I am destined to assume. Let us place all our 
trust in His divine goodness." 

At half-past eight in the morning, they 
reached the Palace, and Paul heard exactly 
what had happened. Catherine had risen, and 
breakfasted, and adjourned to the room in 
which it was the custom for her secretaries and 
her ministers to attend her. They had waited 
to be summoned, and the summons had not 
come. Anxiety had at last been felt, and 
servants had been sent to make inquiries. 
They had knocked, and there had been no answer. 
They had waited a little longer, and then entered 
364 



DEATH OF CATHERINE 



without knocking, and found their Empress 
lying unconscious on the floor ; and her physician 
had been fetched in haste. 

" Apoplexy," he said. He would bleed her — 
he would apply blisters to her feet. But it was 
a bad case — there was little hope that the 
remedies would save her. 

Nor did they. Once Catherine opened her 
eyes and spoke — but only to ask for water. 
Then to the struggle for life succeeded the agony 
of death ; the physicians kneeling by the bedside, 
and wiping the flecks of foam from the dying 
woman's lips — her maid Marie bending over 
her, and sobbing as if her heart would break ; 
while, in an adjoining apartment, Paul and the 
ministers and the courtiers waited, anticipated, 
considered, and prepared — some of them hoping, 
some of them fearing, none of them certain what 
the imminent future would bring forth. For 
there were certain sealed papers — a ukase, per- 
haps — a will, no doubt — material, at any rate, 
for a trial of strength between the favourite and 
the heir. But Zubof's nerve was failing him, 
while Paul's was not — 

" I have never seen," writes Rostopchin, 
" anything resembling the favourite's despair. 
By what emotion he was most violently agitated 
I cannot say ; but his premonition of his com- 
ing fall was depicted not only in his countenance, 
but in every movement that he made. As he 
crossed the Empress's room, he stopped, again 

365 



COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT 



and again, before the body, and burst into a 
storm of sobs: . . . Let me tell you what I 
observed. As I entered the waiting-room, I saw 
Prince Zubof seated in a corner. The courtiers 
avoided him as if he were plague-stricken. Over- 
come with fatigue and thirst, he did not even 
dare to ask for something to drink. I sent a 
servant to him, and myself poured out the glass 
of water refused to him by those who, twenty-four 
hours previously, had depended for their fortunes 
on his smiles. This hall in which men had 
crowded to compete for the honour of a word from 
him was now, so far as he was concerned, a 
barren steppe." 

So complete was the fall of the mighty ; 
completer still when, in obedience to Paul's 
order, he fetched a sealed packet, and Paul, 
finding in it a ukase setting him aside from 
the succession, slowly tore it into tiny fragments. 
And then — the question of the succession thus 
rudely and autocratically settled — there was 
heard the strong voice of Count Samoilof making 
the announcement which at once summoned the 
Grand Duke to reign and doomed him to a 
violent death — 

" Gentlemen ! The Empress Catherine is 
dead, and His Majesty Paul Petrovitch has 
deigned to ascend, the throne of All the Russias." 



I 



366 



V 



INDEX 



Alexander, Grand Duke, 324, 343, 
351. 

Anne Leopoldovna, Grand 

Duchess, 10. 
Anton -.Ulrich of Brunswick, 

Prince, 10. 
Aprakhsin, General, 59, 65. 

Bariatinski, Prince, 97, 117. 
Behmer, Charlotte, 238. 
Bestuchef, Chancellor, 11, 21-22, 

47-50, 55-59, 61, 65-66, 70, 

149-151, 154. 
Betzkoy, General, 247. 
Bruce, Countess, 219. 

Catherine, Empress, 1, et passim. 
Choglokof, Mme, 29, 32-33, 36, 

38, 42, 44- 
Christian - Augustus of Anhalt- 

Zerbst, Prince, 1, 7, 11. 
Colhard, nee Cardel, Madeleine, 

3-4- 

Constantine, Grand Duke, 270, 

324, 343- 
Corberon, Chevalier de, 235 et seq. 
Courland, Princess, 28. 
Czartoryski, Prince Adam, 334- 

335. 338-339. 
Princess, 48. 
Czernichef, Andrew, 31-32, 41. 
Zachar, 37. 

Dashkof, Princess, 73, 75-77, 93, 

96, 102, 111-114, 125, 211. 
Dick, Sir John, 170-172, 177. 
Diderot, Denis, 132, 180-185, 187. 
Divier, Count, 32. 
Dolgoruki, Prince, 316. 

Elizabeth, Empress, 9-10, 43, 
45-47, 56, 61-64, 68-76, 
79-81. 



Elizabeth of Holstein - Gottorp, 

Princess, 2, 6. 
Elphinston, Admiral, 170. 
Engelhart, Barbe, 315. 

Frederick the Great, 1, 6-7, 11, 
55, 84, 114, 166-167. 

Geoff rin, Mme, 157. 

Hamilton, Sir William, 177. 
Harris, Sir Joseph, 243. 
Hyndford, Lord, 19. 

Ivan vi., 9, 72-73, 88-89, 1 19-128. 

Joseph 11. of Austria, 286-289. 

Korsakof, Sergeant, 241 - 243, 
245-247. 

Lanskoi, M., 247-251, 254. 

Lehadrof, Count, 50. 

Lestocq, M., 71, 79, 83. 

Ligne, Prince de, 274-276, 278, 

280, 288-289, 292, 308, 312 et 

seq., 322. 

Mamonof, Count, 260-265, 268, 
280-281, 283, 288-289, 294- 
304- 

Manteuffel, Comte de, 202. 
Michael, Isar, 12. 
Munnich, Marshal, 84, 101, 105- 
109, 112. 

Narishkin, Leon, 38. 

Orlof, Count Alexis, 73, 77-78, 
80-81, 90, 92, 94, 96-97, 107, 
115-117, 125, 169-172, 176- 
178, 294, 347. 

367 



INDEX 



Orlof, Count Gregory, 73, 77-82, 
90, 94, 97, 109, 137-139, 145- 
I 5°, 155-156, 160-162, 164, 
195, 198-212. 

Panin, Count, 73, 75, 77, 81, 93, 
99, in, 115, 117-119, 155, 
169, 227-229, 346. 

Passik, Captain, 92-93, 95, 99. 

Paul, Grand Duke, 73, 87-88, 133, 
345-351, 362-366. 

Peter the Great, 129-131. 

Peter - Ulrich, afterwards Peter 
in., 10, 15, 17-18, 20-29, 
33-34, 44, 46, 53-54, 56, 
63-65, 73, 81-90, 94-99, 101, 
103-119, 123. 

Poniatowski, Count Stanislas, 48, 
5°~55, 61, 67-68, 74, 78-79, 
145-147, 156-159, 162, 168, 
281-284. 

Potemkin, Prascovia, 316. 

Prince, 117, 213-234, 244-247, 
251, 255-259, 264-265, 273, 
280, 284-287, 290-291, 
304-330. 

Pugachef, 189-194. 

Radzivil, Prince, 175-177. 
Razumofski, 153-154, 172. 
Richardson, William, quoted, 

141-143. 
Rostopchin, M., quoted, 356, 

359-364- 
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 135-139. 

Sabatier de Cabres, M., quoted, 

162-163. 
Saint-Pierre, Bernardin de, 197- 

198. 



Samoilof, Count, 366.' 
Scherer, J. B., quoted, 167. 
Schouvalof, Alexander, 61-62, 66, 

104. 
Ivan, 81. 
Segur, M. de, 257-258, 260-261, 

270, 276, 278-280, 286-287, 

291, 305, 3io. 
Soltikof, Sergius, 38-44, 47, 

87-89. 

Spiridof, Admiral, 169-170. 

Talitzin, Admiral, 107. 
Tarakanof, Princess, 170-178. 

Vasilchikof, Lieutenant, 202-204, 

218, 222. 
Voieikof, Major, 99. 
Voltaire, M. Arouetde, 134-135. 
Vorontsof, Elizabeth, 56, 64, 73, 
86-88, 98, 108. 
Simon, 99, 104, 151, 153-154. 

Williams Charles Hanbury, 49-50, 
55, 57- 

Wraxall, Sir Nathaniel, 78-79, 

170, 172. 
Wysocki, 198. 

Yermolof, 255-258, 266. 

Zavadovski, 229, 231-234, 239- 

240, 264. 
Zinovief, Mile, afterwards 

Princess Orlof, 21 1-2 12. 
Zoritch, Lieutenant, 234-235, 

240-245, 264. 
Zubof, Count Plato, 299-301, 

303-304, 320, 330-342, 356, 

359-361, 365-366. 



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Profusely illustrated from photographs. 7/6 net 

The next best thing to an actual trip through Mexico is 
surely a reading of this book. It has all the charm that a 
good book of personal narrative should have, together with 



7 



MR. EVELE1GH NASH'S NEW BOOKS 



an excellent bird's-eye view of the country geographically 
and historically ; and the reader enters sympathetically 
into the many unusual adventures by the way, the rambles 
into odd corners, the romantic excursions looking for lost 
mines, and the intimate acquaintance with Mexico's social 
life. 

THE MODERN NATIONS SERIES 
Each volume Grown 8vo., cloth gilt, with numerous 
Illustrations Price 5/- net each 

Modern Germany By VICTOR GAMBON 

Modern China By EDMUND ROTTACH 

This is a series of up-to-date and thoroughly informative 
books, designed primarily for the business man and of great 
practical utility to Members of Parliament, public workers 
and speakers, and all students of social and industrial life. 
They are accurate and brightly written and give a complete 
bird's-eye view of the important towns in the various 
countries, the industries, methods of municipal and general 
government, and educational systems. 

Further volumes in preparation. 



CHINA AS IT REALLY IS 

2jy John aArm strong 
Price 2/- net 

An ideal book for anyone interested in China and the 
remarkable events that have recently taken place there. 
The author, whose identity is concealed under a pseudonym, 
has for many years occupied an official position in China, 
and is specially well equipped in his subject. 

S 



MR, EVELEIGH NASH'S NEW BOOKS 



BEFORE THE DOCTOR COMES 
*By Dr. ^Andrew Wilson 
Price 2/- net 

An invaluable little book by a well-known authority. The 
title of the book indicates the lines upon which the in- 
formation runs, and the work is prefaced by a clearly put 
and easily understood description of the various organs 
of the human body and the functions they are supposed 
to perform. 

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF 
SPORTS AND PASTIMES 

Edited by E. E. White and E. H. Ryle 

Each volume is crown 8vo., cioth gilt, bulks li-in., 
and has 32 full-page action photographs. 2/- net 
each 

Hockey By ERIC H. GREEN (English International) 
and EUSTACE E. WHITE (Author of " The Com- 
plete Hockey Player," etc.) 

Athletics By E. H. RYLE (Ex-President Cambridge 
University Athletic Club) with contributions by 
Famous Athletes. 

bridge and Auction Bridge By "VALET DE 
PIQUE." 

This is a revolution in sports libraries. Every volume is 
written by experts, and is solely and entirely instructive. 
The magnificent action photographs accompanying each 
volume (32 per volume) are an important and attractive 
feature. These facts, in conjunction with the remarkably 
low price of the volumes (2s. net each), should make the 
National Sports Library the most popular in existence. 

Tartkulars of further Volumes mil be announced shortly. 

9 



MR. EVELEIGH NASH'S NEW BOOKS 



Six-Shilling Fiction 

THE TOWN OF CROOKED WAYS 

/. S. Fletcher 

( Author of u Mr. Poskitt? " "Daniel Quayne," etc. ) 

Mr. J. S. Fletcher's new novel deals with modern life in an 
ancient Yorkshire town, Normansholt, and with the last 
doings of an old Yorkshire family, the Quimperdenes. 
The story of the Quimperdenes forms a powerful study of 
degeneration, but around all and dominating everything 
is the life of Normansholt itself, with its fierce jealousies 
and inveterate passion for gossip and back-biting. 
" The Town of Crooked Ways " is the strongest and most 
finished study of country life that Mr. Fletcher has yet 
produced. 

THE MYSTERY OF NINE 

William Le Queux 

(Author of "Hushed Up!" etc., etc.) 

One of Mr. Le Queux's very best. Was serialised in the 
Daily Telegraph. The mystery centres round one of the 
Royal Houses of Europe, the chief character being a young 
Archduchess, who involves, as her protector from some 
mysterious danger, a young Kensington doctor. The 
plot is well sustained and the love interest strong. 

THE NIGHT LAND 

Sy W. Hope Hodgson 

(Juthor of " The "Boats of g/en Gang," etc.) 

" The Night Land " is a love story, set about with 
stupendous desolation. It is an attempt to tell the Epic 
of the End, and gives a tremendous picture of the stand of 

IO 



MR. EVELEIGH NASH'S NEW BOOKS 



Six-Shilling Fiction 

the Last Millions of the Humans in the Last Redoubt. 
The hero, a man of exceptional gifts, believes his Love to 
be in peril of annihilation by the Evil Forces and Monsters 
that inhabit the wild night country, and he sets off alone 
into the Night Land to rescue her. 

SCARLET AND BLUE 

By Charles Hewson 

A first-rate hunting novel by a sportsman who knows 
hunting through and through. Full of incident and 
abounding in clever character sketches of the many types 
to be found in a hunt. There are descriptions of Otter 
hunts, Fox hunts, Stag hunts, Cock fighting and Beagling, 
and these, together with the doings of the mixed company 
in the " Vale of Amber," make a novel that hunting men 
are sure to enjoy from beginning to end. 

THE MAN WHO STROKED CATS 
And Other Stories 
Sy Morley Roberts 

(Author of "David "Bran" " The Promotion of the Jdmiral" etc.) 

Short stories are generally anathema to the average reader, 
but not so Morley Roberts's. Probably no other writer 
knows better how to make the short story so satisfying, 
and certainly none can write more amusingly. " The Man 
Who Stroked Cats " is a selection of the best of his recent 
work. 

ETERNAL GLORY 

By Carlton DaVpe 

(Author of"J Saint in Mufti " " Her Highness 9 s Secretary" etc.) 

In " Eternal Glory " Mr. Dawe has introduced us to some- 
thing novel in the fields of romance ; to wit, the cult of 



MR. EVELEIGH NASH'S NEW BOOKS 



Six-Shilling Fiction 

ideal snobbishness. In the grotesque adventures, mis- 
adventures, opinions, hopes, ambitions of Sir Harvey 
Minter, and of his trusty henchman, Palgrave Watford, 
the poet, the reader will find spread out before him a 
humorous dish of the most appetising quality. 

INITIALS ONLY 

Sy Anna Katherine Qreen 

{Author of " The Leavenworth Case," " The House of the 
Whispering Pines" etc.) 

A first-rate, exciting-all-the-time detective story, right 
up-to-date in its plot and thrilling in its development. 
It concerns the tracking of a daring scientific criminal who 
is wanted for the murder of a beautiful young heiress. 

GRIM JUSTICE 
The Study of a Conscience 
Sy " <E(tta " 

{Author of " Teg the Rake;' " Calvary," etc.) 

A big powerful novel. f< Rita" plans her stories on a large 
canvas and always carries them through with splendid 
craftsmanship. She is never better than when describing 
the conflict of human emotions, and in " Grim Justice " 
we have " Rita " at her best. 

SECOND FIDDLE 
By the Hon. Mrs. Arthur Henm\er 

{Author of" In Scarlet and Grey" etc) 

This story shows the pathos that may, and often does, 
underlie the life of an apparently prosperous and conven- 
tional woman. The tragedy of playing Second Fiddle in 
the affections of her guardian and her husband is exemplified 
with considerable power in this story of Elizabeth Grant- 
ham's life. 



12 



MR. EVELEIGH NASH'S NEW BOOKS 



Six-Shilling Fiction 

THE VAGRANT 

By Colette Willy 
A book which has had a great success in France. 

A WOMAN OF IMPULSE 
A Sentimental Episode 
Sy Joseph Prague 

(Author of "Vincents Vendetta?') 

THE SWEETNESS OF LIFE 

By Marcel Tinayre^ 

the great French writer, whose charm has already captured 
an appreciable English public. 

A NEW NOVEL 

By Rene TSazin^ 
Author of that famous and successful novel, " The Nun." 

Price Three-and-Sixpence net 

CABBAGES AND KINGS 
By O. Henry 

(The (jreat American Humorist) 

O. Henry is one of America's biggest literary idols, and 
editors there, who pay for breadth and depth of appeal, 
will pay anything for one of his stories. " Cabbages and 
Kings," his first published work in England, is a character- 
istic example of the art that has made him famous, and it 
should find a large and appreciative public in England. 
The scene is sunny Central America, where life moves 
lazily and with truly comic seriousness. O. Henry sets 
his readers smiling from the first page and keeps them at it 
all the time. 



13 



MR. EVELEIGH NASH'S NEW BOOKS 



Two-Shilling Fiction 

THE RIVERPORT MAIL 

By Oliver Wright 

An exciting story with a good plot turning on the robbery 
of a mail train and the disappearance of a will. 

THE BLACK HAND 
Being the Adventures of Craig Kennedy, 
Scientific Investigator 

By Arthur B. Retoe 

These adventures have appeared serially in " Nash's 
Magazine/' and have been widely appreciated, many 
thinking them quite as good as the stories of Sherlock 
Holmes. 

THE ROOM OF MIRRORS 

By Herbert Flowerdew 

Originally published under the title of " The Realist" 
A striking and dramatic novel. 

THE KISS OF CHANCE 

By Ronald Dunster 

THE WOMAN DEBORAH 

By zAlice and Claude aAs^ew, 

Authors of "The Shulamite," to which book this is the 
sequel. 

1.4 



MR. EVELEIGH NASH'S NEW BOOKS 



Two-Shilling Fiction 

THE RADIUM TERRORS 

Sy <iAlbert Dorrington 

A grim and thrilling story. Was a star serial in the " Pall 
Mall Magazine." 

THE MYSTERY OF THE 
YELLOW ROOM 

Sy Gaston Leroux, 
Author of " The Perfume of the Lady in Black/' 

THE GOLDEN VENTURE 

By J. S. Fletcher 

NASH'S NEW SHILLING NOVELS 

A dainty and attractive series printed on high quality, 
pliable white paper and tastefully bound in limp picture 
covers. 

THE SILENT HOUSE 

By Louis Tracy 

THE BLACK SPIDER 

By Carlton Dawe 

SEA DOGS 

By Morley Roberts 

A HONEYMOON— AND AFTER 
By F. C. Philips 

THE ARREST OF ARS&NE LUPIN 

By Maurice Leblanc 

15 



EVELEIGH NASH 
Publisher 




36 King Street, Govent Garden, 
London, W.G. 



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